Japan today threatened to shoot down a satellite that North Korea plans to launch early next month if it shows any signs of striking its territory.
Tokyo's warning that it would deploy its multibillion-dollar missile defence system raised tensions in the region after North Korea said that it had identified a potential "danger area" near Japanese territory along the rocket's flight path.
The regime told the International Maritime Organisation that the missile would be launched during daylight between 4 and 8 April, and that its boosters would fall into the Sea of Japan – about 75 miles (120km) from Japan's north-west coast – and the Pacific Ocean.
Officials in Tokyo said they reserved the right to destroy any threatening object in mid-flight, despite North Korean warnings that it would consider such a move an act of war.
"Under our law, we can intercept any object if it is falling towards Japan, including any attacks on Japan, for our security," Takeo Kawamura, the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters.
Despite repeated assurances from Pyongyang that the rocket is a vital part of North Korea's space programme, other countries in the region suspect the hardware is a Taepodong-2 ballistic missile.
South Korean intelligence has reported a build-up of activity in recent days near the missile's launch pad at Musudan-ri base on its neighbour's north-east coast.
Any missile launch, even one intended to put a satellite into orbit, would represent a snub to the US administration, which has repeatedly invited the communist state to return to negotiations over its nuclear weapons programme.
Last month the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, urged the north to cancel the launch, which US officials say would be in violation of a 2006 UN security council resolution.
The South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement: "If North Korea goes ahead with the launch, we believe there will be discussions and a response by the security council on the violation of the resolution."
The UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, said a missile or satellite launch would "threaten the peace and stability in the region."
After Japan's transport ministry ordered airlines and shipping companies operating in the area to take precautionary measures, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways said they would alter flight paths on several European and other routes.
Speculation has been mounting for weeks that North Korea was about to put its hitherto unreliable missile technology to the test. The regime suffered a setback in 2006 when a Taepodong-2 missile – theoretically capable of reaching Alaska – blew up moments into its flight.
Japan has intensified efforts to protect itself against conventional missile attacks since 1998, when the north test-launched a long-range rocket over its territory without warning.
In response, Japan and the US have jointly developed a ballistic missile defence system that includes interceptor missiles on board ships and Patriot missiles dotted around Tokyo.
But experts believe that a rocket capable of launching a satellite into orbit may be too high to intercept.
North Korea puts troops on alert, warns of war danger
By Jean H. Lee
Associated Press
POSTED: 02:40 p.m. EDT, Mar 09, 2009
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA: North Korea put its troops on alert and cut the last hot line to Seoul today as the American and South Korean militaries began joint maneuvers. The communist regime warned that even the slightest provocation could trigger war.
The North stressed that provocation would include any attempt to interfere with its impending launch of a satellite into orbit. U.S. and Japanese officials suspect the launch is a cover for a test of a long-range attack missile and have suggested they might move to intercept the rocket.
''Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war,'' North Korea's military threatened in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. Any interception attempt will draw ''a just, retaliatory strike,'' it said.
The North has been on a steady retreat from reconciliation since President Lee Myung-bak took office in the South a year ago. After Lee said the North must continue dismantling its nuclear program if it wants aid, Pyongyang cut ties, suspended joint projects and stepped up its belligerence rhetoric.
''The danger of a military conflict is further increasing than ever before on the Korean Peninsula because of the saber rattling which involves armed forces huge enough to fight a war,'' the North's news agency warned as Pyongyang put its armed forces on standby for combat.
Allied commanders say the exercises are nothing more than the annual drills the two nations have held for years, while the North has been condemning them as a rehearsal for invasion.
Analysts say North Korea's heated words are designed to grab President Barack Obama's attention. With South Korea cutting off aid, the impoverished North is angling for a diplomatic coup of establishing direct ties with the U.S., analysts say.
For weeks, the North has said it is forging ahead with plans to send a communications satellite into space — a launch that U.S. and Japanese officials say would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution banning the North from testing ballistic missiles. That decree came after the North test-fired a long-range missile and conducted an underground nuclear weapon test in 2006.
Analysts say the launch could occur late this month or in early April, around the time North Korea's new parliament, elected Sunday, convenes its first session with leader Kim Jong Il at its helm.
Kim, 67, was among legislators unanimously elected to a five-year term, the North's state media said. Elections in North Korea are largely a formality, with the ruling Workers' Party hand-picking one candidate for each district and voters endorsing the sole nominee.
Observers were watching the results for signs of a shift in policy — or hints that Kim, who reportedly suffered a stroke last August, might be grooming a son to succeed him. None of his three sons appeared on a list of lawmakers announced on state TV late today.
In Seoul, Obama's special envoy on North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, urged Pyongyang not to fire a missile, which he said would be an ''extremely ill-advised'' move.
''Whether they describe it as a satellite launch or something else makes no difference,'' Bosworth said after talks with his South Korean counterpart on drawing Pyongyang back to international talks on the North's nuclear disarmament.
South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman, Won Tae-jae, played down the North's threats as ''rhetoric,'' but added that the country's military was ready to deal with any contingencies.
Hundreds of South Koreans were stranded in the northern border town of Kaesong after Pyongyang severed the last communications link between the two governments to protest the U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began today.
North Korea banned nearly all cross-border traffic in December amid deteriorating relations with Seoul but has allowed a skeleton staff of South Koreans to work at a joint industrial zone in Kaesong that is a crucial source of hard currency for the isolated communist regime.
The two Koreas use the hot line to coordinate the passage of people and goods through the heavily fortified Demilitarized Zone, and its suspension shut down traffic and stranded about 570 South Koreans north of the border.
All South Koreans in Kaesong are safe, Seoul's Unification Ministry said as it called on Pyongyang to restore communications.
Cutting the hot line for the duration of the 12-day U.S.-South Korean maneuvers leaves the two Koreas without any means of quick, direct communication at a time of high tension, when even an accidental skirmish could trigger fighting.
North and South Korea technically remain in a state of war since their 1950-53 conflict ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers are massed on each side of the DMZ.
The United States, which has about 28,000 military personnel in South Korea, routinely holds joint military exercises with the South.
Last week, the North threatened danger to South Korean passenger planes flying near its airspace if the maneuvers went ahead, and several airlines rerouted their flights as a precaution.
Gen. Walter Sharp, the U.S. commander, said the joint exercises — involving some 26,000 U.S. troops, an unspecified number of South Korean soldiers and a U.S. aircraft carrier — are ''not tied in any way to any political or real world event.''
SEOUL, South Korea (CNN) -- Stalinist North Korea deployed new medium-range ballistic missiles and expanded special forces training during 2008, South Korea's defense ministry reported.
The missiles can travel about 3,000 kilometers (1,900 miles), possibly putting U.S. military bases in the Pacific Ocean territory of Guam within striking distance, the Ministry of National Defense said in its 2008 Defense White Paper, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Monday.
The paper, published after weeks of delay, calls the North's 1.2 million-strong military an "immediate and grave threat," according to Yonhap.
The report adds that the North has recently bolstered its naval forces, reinforcing submarines and developing new torpedoes, in addition to increasing its special forces training after reviewing U.S. military tactics in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Tension between Pyongyang and Seoul has increased in recent weeks, with North Korea announcing it would scrap peace agreements with the South, warning of a war on the Korean peninsula and threatening to test a missile capable of hitting the western United States.
U.S. and South Korean officials have said that North Korea appears to be preparing to test-fire its long-range missile, the Taepodong-2. Pyongyang tested one of the missiles in 2006, but it failed 40 seconds after launch.
The missile is thought to have an intended range of about 4,200 miles (6,700 kilometers), which if true, could give it the capability of striking Alaska or Hawaii.
North Korea has been involved in what is known as the six-party talks with the United States, Japan, Russia, South Korea and China, which is an effort to end the nation's nuclear program, which the U.S. says is linked to nuclear weapons.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who returned from Asia on Sunday after her first overseas trip in the post, recently called North Korea's nuclear program "the most acute challenge to stability in northeast Asia."
March 19, 2009
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Two senior U.S. commanders said Thursday that the military is ready if called upon to shoot down North Korea's planned rocket launch next month.
The top U.S. commander in the Pacific, Adm. Timothy Keating, told senators at a hearing that there was a "high probability" that the United States could knock down a North Korean missile. Gen. Walter Sharp, the U.S. commander in South Korea, said the threat "is real."
The comments come as North Korea reportedly prepares for what many believe will be a long-range missile test in early April. North Korea says it will launch a communications satellite, and defends the launch by saying other countries have been pursuing peaceful space programs.
Keating said the United States is getting "reasonable intelligence" reports that give a close look at North Korea's activities.
"We'll be prepared to respond," he said, adding that "the United States has the capability" to shoot down any missile.
Sharp said any launch would be a "very clear" violation of a U.N. Security Council resolution. "The threat," he said, "is real, and it is felt in South Korea." The U.S. has some 28,500 military personnel in South Korea.
"We call on North Korea not to act in this provocative manner," Sharp said.
In his testimony, Sharp said North Korea continues to build missiles of "increasing range, lethality and accuracy" for sale in Syria and Iran and elsewhere and for its own forces.
The United States, he said, "cannot afford to overlook" the threat those missiles pose to Asia and the world.
Sharp said North Korea is struggling with attempts to balance increased contact with the outside world and the risks such contact poses to "regime control."
That, Sharp said, "raises questions about the long-term viability of an increasingly stressed North Korean regime."
Sharp also said North Korean leader Kim Jong Il "is in charge. Every major decision is coming directly from him."
Kim, 67, reportedly suffered a stroke in August. North Korea denies he was ill.
So, what do the rest of you guys think?
Yeah, North Korea has been doing this for years... but not a ton of events happening this close together...
I think the North Korean Army is gonna rush across the DMZ any day now..
