Steve Quayle News Alerts

March 26, 2003

North Korea warned Wednesday that Japan would face "self-destruction" if it puts a spy satellite into orbit as Tokyo said it had stepped up vigilance amid reports Pyongyang may test a ballistic missile around the time of the satellite launch.

Japan is due to launch its first two spy satellites on Friday, a move approved after North Korea fired a suspected medium-range Taepodong missile over the country into the Pacific in August 1998.

Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) accused Japan of acting as "a shock brigade" for the launch of a US pre-emptive attack and nuclear war against North Korea.

"If it takes the road of re-invasion, toeing the US policy to stifle the DPRK (North Korea) militarily, Japan will not have its security guaranteed but face self-destruction," KCNA said.

"Japan should not run amuck, clearly mindful of such consequences."

KCNA blasted Japan for the planned launching of the spy satellite "at a time when the United States has designated it (North Korea) as the next target of its attack after the ongoing Iraqi war."

Even before the latest sabre-rattling rhetoric from Pyongyang, Japan said Wednesday it had increased monitoring of North Korea as reports said Pyongyang may test fire a ballistic missile around the time of the satellites' launch.

The government's defence agency said the Maritime Self Defence Forcehad dispatched a destroyer equipped with the Aegis guided missile system to the Sea of Japan between the Japanese archipelago and Korean Peninsula.

"We are watching North Korean moves... but it is part of our efforts to strengthen information gathering and surveillance as a whole since attacks on Iraq started," an agency official said.

Local newspapers said the satellite launch could trigger North Korea to fire a missile.

The popular Mainichi Shimbun quoted an anonymous government source as saying North Korea may fire a ballistic missile "around Friday."

"It is possible that North Korea takes Japan's launch as 'provocative act' and uses it as an excuse" to test-fire a missile, the source was quoted as saying.

The mass-circulation Yomiuri Shimbun reported "the government thinks North Korea may fire a ballistic missile around the same period of time as the (satellite) launch."

North Korea test-fired short-range anti-ship missiles on February 24 and March 10.

The daily said the Cabinet Office had increased its purchase of pictures of North Korea taken by commercial satellites and the Air Self Defence Force planned to exchange radar information with the United States to help it detect signs of missile firing.

But the defence agency official said there was no evidence that North Korea would test fire a missile as soon as reports suggested.

"We have not obtained information that a missile launch is imminent," he said.

On Monday the US ambassador to Japan Howard Baker told Japanese media there had been indications of further "provocations" by Pyongyang, "including the possibility of another ballistic missile test," an embassy spokeswoman said.

North Korea is believed to have deployed some 100 Rodong-1 missiles with a range of 1,300 kilometers (805 miles), capable of striking any target in Japan.

Analysts say the earlier short-range missile tests were part of Pyongyang's game of brinkmanship in the tense stand-off over the North's nuclear weapons drive.

The crisis erupted in October when Washington said North Korea had admitted running a secret nuclear program in breach of a 1994 bilateral accord.

Since then Pyongyang has kicked out international weapons inspectors, pulled out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and fired up a reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear plant that is capable of producing weapons grade plutonium.

http://www.spacewar.com/2003/030326064915.pey5dj9j.html