WASHINGTON (Yonhap) -- The Obama administration is continuing efforts through various channels to avert North Korea's planned long-range rocket launch, the White House said Thursday.
"We are engaging at a variety of levels, as we always do, to convey to the North Koreans the fact that this activity, if it takes place, would be in violation of their international agreements and would make it impossible for us to pursue the nutritional assistance that had been discussed earlier," Press Secretary Jay Carney said at a press briefing.
The U.S. agreed to provide 240,000 tons of food aid to the North in a Feb. 29 deal. In return, the North agreed to a moratorium on missile launches. Two weeks later, however, Pyongyang said it would place a satellite into orbit between April 12 and 16.
North Korea contends that its "peaceful" booster launch has nothing to do with the latest agreement with the U.S., aimed at paving the way for a resumption of the six-party nuclear talks.
The U.S. emphasizes that the North is prohibited from ballistic missile activity under U.N. Security Council resolutions imposed after its long-range missile and nuclear tests in 2009.
Carney said the U.S. is also working with China to "encourage them to use their influence with the North Koreans to get them to change their behavior and to stand down with regards to this ballistic missile test."
Meanwhile, the Pentagon said it is keeping close tabs on the North's preparations for a launch.
"We are monitoring very closely the prospect of a missile launch. We take this prospect very seriously," Defense Department spokesman George Little told reporters.
"We have the means at our disposal to track very closely what's happening," he said without elaborating.
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency's towering sea-based X-Band Radar tracking ship sailed out of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on March 23.
Its destination was unclear, but it doesn't have to be near the Korean Peninsula to track the space launch. Agency officials in the past have said the radar could track a baseball-sized object flying through space on the East Coast while the SBX was on the West Coast.