North Korea ups tension with short-range missiles شمالی کوریا کے شارٹ فاصلے کے میزائل تجرات سےتشویش میں اضافہ۔۔۔۔
By Jack Kim and Miyoung Kim
SEOUL (Reuters Thu Jul 2, 2009) – North Korea test-fired four short-range missiles on Thursday, further stoking already high regional tension due to its nuclear test and threats to boost its nuclear arsenal in response to UN sanctions. ¶ The North, which often fires short-range missiles as part of military drills and usually times the launches for periods of diplomatic friction, was hit with UN sanctions following its May 25 nuclear test. ¶ The salvo began with two surface-to-ship missiles fired off North Korea’s east coast between 5:20 p.m and 6 p.m. (0820-0900 GMT) that flew about 100 km (60 miles) and splashed into the sea, a South Korean defense official said. ¶ A third short-range missile was fired around two hours later, the defense ministry said, and South Korea’s Yonhap news agency, citing officials in Seoul, later said a fourth had been fired. ¶ North Korea last month warned shipping to keep away from a maritime zone extending 110 km (68 miles) off its east coast between June 25 and July 10, saying it was conducting a military drill. ¶ In Washington, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly called the latest missile firings “not helpful” and “dangerous.” ¶ “They need to cut out these kind of provocative actions and return to denuclearization talks,” he told a news briefing. ¶ A South Korean daily said that the secretive North may also test fire mid-range missiles, viewed by the South, the United States and others as a more serious act, in a matter of days. ¶ Japan, a party to currently suspended six-nation talks aimed at coaxing the isolated North to give up its nuclear program in return for aid and greater diplomatic recognition, was quick to condemn Pyongyang’s latest action. ¶ “We have often warned that such a provocative act is not beneficial for North Korea’s national interest,” Kyodo News Agency quoted Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso as telling reporters. ¶ The short-range missile launches came after regional markets had closed for the day, but East Asian investors have grown used to North Korea’s saber-rattling and tend not to be fazed. ¶ Analysts say they would likely panic only if there was military conflict on a peninsula where 2 million troops face each other across one of the world’s most heavily armed borders.
TIGHTENING SANCTIONS
Washington said this week it had tightened its crackdown on firms linked to the North’s lucrative proliferation of missiles, a major source of cash for the destitute state, and has sent the U.S. point man for sanctions to Asia for discussions. ¶ Enforcement of the sanctions, aimed at halting its trade in arms, would depend heavily on China, the North’s biggest benefactor and trade partner, analysts said. ¶ China said on Thursday it was sending its envoy to the six-party talks to South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States. North Korea, the sixth party, was not on the itinerary. ¶ “China has consistently advocated dialogue and consultation, and achieving denuclearization of the Korean peninsula through the six-party talks process,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a news briefing. ¶ Earlier the JoongAng Ilbo daily quoted an intelligence source as saying the North was likely to fire medium or short range missiles from its east coast in early July that could include Scuds with a range of about 340 km (210 miles) or Rodong missiles with a range of up to 1,000 km (620 miles).
North Korea fired a barrage of short-range missiles following its May nuclear test, which experts said put the state closer to having a working nuclear bomb. ¶ It launched a rocket in April in what was widely seen as a disguised long-range missile test that violated U.N. resolutions banning it from ballistic missile launches. ¶ Philip Goldberg, the U.S. envoy who coordinates sanctions against the North, has been in China to enlist Beijing’s help in getting tough with North Korea and said he had had “good discussions” with his Chinese counterparts. ¶”We want all the various aspects of the resolution to work,” he told reporters after a day of meetings, adding that this included financial sanctions. ¶ He will be in Malaysia on Sunday before heading back to Washington on Monday. ¶ It was not immediately clear why he was visiting Malaysia, although earlier this week Japanese media reported police in Japan had arrested three people on suspicion of attempting to export equipment that could be used in weapons production to Myanmar via Malaysia and suspected a link to North Korea. ¶ South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan said he was seeking a meeting of the foreign ministers of the six countries, including the North, on the sidelines of a regional security forum on July 23 in Thailand. ¶ Officials said the North’s military grandstanding is likely related to moves by its leadership to begin readying leader Kim Jong-il’s youngest son as a future heir by consolidating the 67-year-old leader’s power base. ¶ (Additional reporting by Chris Buckley and Emma Graham-Harrison in Beijing, Kim Yeon-hee and Jon Herskovitz in Seoul and Yoko Kubota in Tokyo; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Cynthia Osterman) – source http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKTRE5612OE20090702
U.S. ‘ready’ for N. Korean missile
Washington Times - COLORADO SPRINGS | U.S. missile defenses are prepared to try to knock down the last stage of a Taepodong-2 missile that North Korea is expected soon to launch if sensors detect the weapon threatens U.S. territory, the commander of the U.S. Northern Command told The Washington Times. - “The nation has a very, very credible ballistic-missile defense capability. Our ground-based interceptors in Alaska and California, I’m very comfortable, give me a capability that if we really are threatened by a long-range ICBM that I’ve got high confidence that I could interdict that flight before it caused huge damage to any U.S. territory,” said Air Force Gen. Victor E. “Gene” Renuart, Northcom commander.
The general said the United States won’t activate its missile defenses if the North Korean missile appears it will fall safely into the water as the country’s last test missile did. - (Corrected paragraph:) Asked if North Korea is likely to conduct a July 4 Taepodong-2 test, as occurred in 2006, Gen. Renuart said in an interview this week with The Times at Northern Command headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, “I think we ought to assume there might be one on the first of July and continue to be prepared and ready.” - Gen. Renuart, who is commander of the military’s first combatant command devoted to defending against threats to U.S. territory, is also the commander of the U.S.-Canada North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, which monitors missile launches around the world and also foreign military aircraft intrusions of U.S. air space. Since Sept. 11, 2001, NORAD is also in charge of tracking civilian aircraft to be ready to respond to a terrorist hijacking. - Gen. Renuart said North Korea’s leaders are unpredictable and their “decision logic does not always follow in the same vein as ours does.” Read more – http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/02/us-ready-for-n-korean-missile/print/
