North Korea appears to have moved a medium range missile capable of hitting targets in Sth Korea and Japan.
- Communication intercepts reveal plans to launch missile
- Missile components 'being moved to North Korean coast'
- Speculation launch is 'test' to mark North Korean holiday
- View interactive North Korean timeline at end of story
THE United States says it is taking ''all necessary precautions'' after North Korea rang fresh alarms in an escalating crisis by moving a medium-range missile to its east coast.
South Korea's Defence Minister, Kim Kwan-jin, said the missile could reach a ''considerable distance'', but not the US mainland, telling MPs it ''could be aimed at test-firing or military drills''.
He dismissed reports in Japanese media that the missile could be a KN-08, which is believed to be a long-range missile that if operable could hit the United States.
Intercepted military communications indicate North Korea could be planning to launch a missile spotted being moved by train yesterday.
CNN has reported a United States official as saying the communications revealed the launch was planned for the coming days.
The US is reportedly seeking the location of a secret North Korean launch facility or hidden launch vehicles on the nation's east coast.
Former UN ambassador Bill Richardson smiles as he responds to the media at Beijing International airport in Beijing on January 7, 2013, before his trip to North Korea.
The location is of particular concern as any launch would likely go over the coast of Japan.
It was the latest incremental move by North Korea which, incensed at fresh UN sanctions and South Korea-US military drills, has issued a series of apocalyptic threats of nuclear war in recent weeks.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said on Thursday the barrage of threats fitted a ''regrettable but familiar'' pattern of North Korean behaviour.
''We're taking all the necessary precautions,'' Carney said, citing ''prudent measures'' to respond to the possible missile threat.
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A file photo, a North Korean vehicle carrying a Musudan missile passes by during a mass military parade in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square to celebrate the centenary of the birth of the late North Korean founder Kim Il Sung.
The Pentagon has said it will send missile-interceptor batteries to protect bases on Guam, a US territory some 3380 km southeast of North Korea and home to 6000 American military personnel.
South Korean intelligence sources reportedly identified the North Korean missile as an intermediate-range Musudan.
The Musudan has never been tested, but is believed to have a range of around 3000 km, which could theoretically be pushed to 4000 with a light payload.
South Korea's defence ministry spokesman said he could not confirm the precise type of missile, but said a Musudan could pose a threat to US forces on Guam.
Most experts think the North is not yet capable of mounting a nuclear device on a ballistic missile capable of striking US bases or territory.
Some suspect that an apparent long-range missile unveiled by the North at a parade last year was actually a mockup.
"From what we know of its existing inventory, North Korea has short- and medium-range missiles that could complicate a situation on the Korean Peninsula (and perhaps reach Japan), but we have not seen any evidence that it has long-range missiles that could strike the continental US, Guam or Hawaii," James Hardy, Asia Pacific editor of IHS Jane's Defence Weekly, wrote in a recent analysis.
On Thursday the North Korean army said it had received final approval for military action, possibly involving ''diversified'' nuclear weapons, against the threat posed by US B-52 and B-2 stealth bombers participating in joint military drills with South Korea.
''The moment of explosion is approaching fast,'' the army's general staff said,
The blistering rhetoric has stoked international concern, with UN chief Ban Ki-moon describing the daily threats from Pyongyang as ''really alarming and troubling''.
A North Korean soldier watches the South Korean side at the border village of Panmunjom in the demilitarized zone (DMZ) in South Korea.
''I think they have gone too far in their rhetoric and I am concerned that if by any misjudgment, by any miscalculations ... this will have very serious implications,'' Ban said.
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard expressed solidarity with South Korea in a phone hook-up with President Park Geun-hye.
She emphasised the importance Australia placed on South Korea's security and promised to continue pressuring North Korea to put an end to its stance, and to engage in dialogue with its southern neighbour.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has said he will make a personal appeal for China to persuade North Korea to ''ratchet down'' its behaviour.
It comes as the PM's second visit to China takes place. As a member of the UN Security Council, Australia is a player in the unfolding situation, and the PM and her senior advisers will have opportunities to push the case for peace and stability.
Soldiers of the U.S. Army 23rd chemical battalion wear gas masks while attending a demonstration of their equipment during a ceremony to recognize the battalion's official return to the 2nd Infantry Division based in South Korea at Camp Stanley in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul.
One approach may be to urge China to enforce UN-backed sanctions on the flow of military technology across its border into North Korea, which may be being used to enhance its nuclear weapons program.
Ms Gillard and Mr Carr, during their six-day mission which began today, will raise the idea of further sanctions on financial and trade links with North Korea.
Australia continues to call on North Korea to stop the provocation.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott urged Gillard to raise the North Korea issue with China's leaders.
''China is probably the only country that does have serious influence on that rogue state,'' he said this week.
North Korean soldiers on the lookout at a watch tower in the North Korean town of Sinuiju. Picture: AP
US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has said the threat levels combined with the North's military capabilities represented a ''real and clear danger'' to the United States and its allies, South Korea and Japan.
Since the movement of the North Korean missile, there has been speculation Pyongyang might schedule a firing to coincide with the birthday of the country's late founder Kim Il-Sung in mid-April.
A provocative missile test-fired into the sea over Japan is one scenario that analysts have said the North could choose to exit the crisis with a face-saving show of force.
''A flight test would make sense,'' said Daniel Pinkston, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group.
''But I'd be surprised if they used an untested missile. At this stage in the game, they don't want to be firing off something that might disintegrate after 30 seconds,'' Pinkston told AFP.
South Korean soldiers patrol inside the barbed-wire fence near the border village of Panmunjom in Paju, South Korea.
Apart from its threats of nuclear attack, the North also warned this week it would reopen its mothballed Yongbyon reactor - its source of weapons-grade plutonium that was closed in 2007 under an aid-for-disarmament accord.
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On Thursday, North Korea blocked access to its Kaesong joint industrial zone with South Korea for the second day running, and threatened to pull out its 53,000 workers in a furious reaction to the South's airing of a ''military'' contingency plan to protect its own workers there.
The zone was shut today for a scheduled North Korean holiday, with managers of the 123 South Korean companies in the complex warning they would have to close down operations in a matter of days unless the North lifted the ban on incoming raw materials and personnel.
The Unification Ministry said there were still 608 South Korean citizens in Kaesong today, after 253 returned to the South.
Soldiers of the U.S. Army 23rd chemical battalion, wearing anti-chemical suits check mock chemical pollutants on each other for a demonstration of their equipment during a ceremony to recognize the battalion's official return to the 2nd Infantry Division based in South Korea at Camp Stanley in Uijeongbu, north of Seoul.
Analysts say the ominous warnings in recent weeks are probably efforts to provoke softer policies from South Korea, to win diplomatic talks with Washington and solidify the image of young North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Many of the threats come in the middle of the night in Asia - daytime for the US audience.
The report of the movement of the missile came hours after North Korea's military warned that it had been granted approval to attack the US using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. The reference to smaller weapons could be a claim that North Korea has improved its nuclear technology, or a bluff.
The North is not believed to have mastered the technology needed to miniaturize nuclear bombs enough to mount them on long-range missiles. Nor has it demonstrated that those missiles, if it has them at all, are accurate. It also could be years before the country completes the laborious process of creating enough weaponized fuel to back up its nuclear threats.
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Kim, the South Korean defense minister, said that if North Korea were preparing for a full-scale conflict, there would be signs such as the mobilization of a number of units, including supply and rear troops, but South Korean military officials have found no such preparations.
"(North Korea's recent threats) are rhetorical threats. I believe the odds of a full-scale provocation are small," he said. But he added that North Korea might mount a small-scale provocation such as its 2010 shelling of a South Korean island, an attack that killed four people.
At times, North Korea has gone beyond rhetoric.
On Tuesday, it announced it would restart a plutonium reactor it had shut down in 2007. A US research institute said Wednesday that satellite imagery shows that construction needed for the restart has already begun.
For a second day yesterday, North Korean border authorities denied entry to South Koreans who manage jointly run factories in the North Korean city of Kaesong. South Koreans already at the plant were being allowed to return home.
South Korea has prepared a military contingency plan should North Korea hold South Korean workers hostage in Kaesong, Defense Minister Kim said. He wouldn't elaborate.
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Outraged over comments in the South about possible hostage-taking and a military response from Seoul, a North Korean government-run committee threatened to pull North Korean workers out of Kaesong as well.
In Monaco, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "very much disappointed and concerned" by the North's move to restrict access by South Korean personnel and goods into Kaesong's industrial complex and called for the measure to be lifted as soon as possible.
North Korea's military statement yesterday, from an unidentified spokesman from the General Bureau of the Korean People's Army, said its troops had been authorized to counter U.S. "aggression" with "powerful practical military counteractions," including nuclear weapons.
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It said America's "hostile policy" and "nuclear threat" against North Korea "will be smashed by the strong will of all the united service personnel and people and cutting-edge smaller, lighter and diversified nuclear strike means."
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich has criticised a move by the North Korean parliament this week to declare the country in effect a nuclear weapons state.
"It's categorically unacceptable to see such defiant neglect by Pyongyang of UN Security Council resolutions and fundamental regulations in the area of non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," he said.
South Korea's Defense Ministry said its military is ready to deal with any provocation by North Korea. "I can say we have no problem in crisis management," deputy ministry spokesman Wee Yong-sub told reporters.
The 11-day US-South Korean joint military drills in March involved 10,000 South Korean and about 3000 US troops, incorporating fighter jets and nuclear-capable stealth bombers. Those coincided with two months of separate US-South Korean field exercises that began March 1.
On Sunday, Kim Jong Un led a high-level meeting of party officials who declared building the economy and "nuclear armed forces" as the nation's priorities.
North Korea is believed to be working toward building an atomic bomb small enough to mount on a long-range missile. Long-range rocket launches designed to send satellites into space in 2009 and 2012 were widely considered covert tests of missile technology, and North Korea has conducted three underground nuclear tests.
"I don't believe North Korea has the capacity to attack the United States with nuclear weapons mounted on missiles, and won't for many years. Its ability to target and strike South Korea is also very limited," nuclear scientist Siegfried Hecker, a senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, said this week.
In comments posted on CISAC's website, Hecker said North Korea knows a nuclear attack would be met with "a devastating nuclear response."
Hecker has estimated that North Korea has enough plutonium to make several crude nuclear bombs. Its announcement Tuesday that it would restart a plutonium reactor indicated that it intends to produce more nuclear weapons material.
The US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies has examined recent commercial satellite imagery of the Nyongbyon nuclear facility, where the reactor was shut down in 2007 under the terms of a disarmament agreement. A cooling tower for the reactor was destroyed in 2008.
The analysis published on the institute's website, 38 North, says that rebuilding the tower would take six months, but a March 27 photo shows building work may have started for an alternative cooling system that could take just weeks. Experts estimate it could take three months to a year to restart the plant.
- With AP, AFP
