SEOUL, South Korea (AP) – It’s another big, splashy step for the North Korean government: a planned rocket launch the world will see as a banned test of long-range missile technology that comes only weeks after testing what it said was a hydrogen bomb.
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Pyongyang announced that the country will launch a rocket carrying the satellite sometime between 7-14 February, which is around the time of the birthday of the country’s late leader Kim Jong-Il, the father of Kim Jong-Un.
“While launching satellites helps North Korea learn about rocket technology, I think its desire to launch satellites is real”, he told AP.
Japan’s defence minister said he had issued an order to shoot down any missile that threatened to fall on Japanese territory.
“North Korea’s successful rocket launch may conjure up visions of nuclear missiles in the hands of one of the planet’s least predictable regimes”.
The planned satellite launch has been condemned by the global community as a disguised ballistic missile test that amounts to another serious violation of United Nations resolution, following the North’s nuclear test last month.
The launch will surely amplify calls by the US and South Korea for more stringent trade and financial sanctions against North Korea.
North Korea declared its intentions to launch a satellite into space Tuesday, but the global community has since claimed the communist country actually wants to launch a rocket.
Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also urged North Korea to “refrain” from the launch and said his cabinet was working closely with the United States and South Korea to gather information and prepare a potential response.
The group said the images indicated no significant changes at the launch pad itself, where work platforms on the gantry towers remained folded forward. Based on coordinates provided by North Korea to the IMO, the first stage and fairing of the rocket will drop off in waters between South Korea and China.
Xi stressed that China, under any circumstances, is firmly committed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, is staunchly committed to maintaining peace and stability on the Peninsula, and insists on a solution through dialogue and consultation, which meets the common interests of the countries in Northeast Asia including China and South Korea. The statement also attacked South Korea’s chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Lee Sun-jin for his inspection of the island of Baengnyeongdo, near the Northern Limit Line, accusing him of “wandering like a dog”.
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China, the Soviet Union and the US have all used intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to launch satellites in the past.
