NKorean Launches Maybe Included New Scud

By HYUNG-JIN KIM / AP WRITER
The Irrawaddy News

SEOUL — A barrage of ballistic missiles that North Korea test-fired over the weekend may have included a new type of Scud missile with an extended range and improved accuracy that poses a threat to Japan, a South Korean newspaper reported Monday.

Pyongyang launched seven missiles into waters off its east coast Saturday in a show of force that defied UN resolutions and drew international condemnation.

On Monday, South Korea's mass-circulation Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported the launches were believed to have included three Scud-ER missiles with a range of up to 620 miles (1,000 kilometers).

The paper said the Scud-ER has a longer range and better accuracy compared with previous Scud series so is "particularly a threat to Japan."

Tokyo is about 720 miles (1,160 kilometers) from the base on North Korea's east coast from where the missiles were fired. Some other parts of Japan are closer, well within the range of a Scud-ER.

Scuds are single stage, liquid-fueled missiles, originally developed in the former Soviet Union, and generally known for poor accuracy. Ballistic missile programs in Pakistan and Iran were built on Scud technology.

The Chosun Ilbo, citing a government source it did not name, said the other four missiles were two Scud-C missiles with a range of 310 miles (500 kilometers) and two medium-range Rodong missiles that can travel up to 810 miles (1,300 kilometers).

Five of the seven missiles flew about 260 miles (420 kilometers) from an eastern coastal launch site and landed in one area, meaning their accuracy has improved, the paper said.

South Korea's Defense Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae said Monday that the North demonstrated improved missile accuracy in the latest tests because they all landed in the same area.

He declined to confirm details of the Chosun Ilbo report.

Another ministry official told The Associated Press on Sunday that the missiles appeared to have traveled about 250 miles (400 kilometers), meaning that key government and military facilities in South Korea were within range. The official spoke on condition of anonymity citing department policy.

North Korea has long-range missiles as well. The Taepodong-2 has a potential range of more than 4,100 miles (6,700 kilometers), putting Alaska within striking distance.

The country is believed to be developing a missile with an even longer range that could potentially put the US west coast, Hawaii, Australia and eastern Europe within striking distance.

The launches on July 4—the US Independence Day holiday—also appeared to be a poke at Washington as it moves to enforce UN as well as its own sanctions against the isolated regime for its May 25 nuclear test.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned they were "very destabilizing, potentially."

North Korean state media have not specifically mentioned the launches but boasted Sunday that the country's military could impose "merciless punishment" on those who provoke it.

"Our revolutionary forces have grown up today as the strong army that can impose merciless punishment against those who offend us," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The North has engaged in a series of acts this year widely seen as provocative. It fired a long-range rocket it said was a satellite in early April, and in late May it carried out its second underground nuclear test following the first in late 2006.

The UN Security Council punished Pyongyang with tough sanctions centered on clamping down on North Korea's alleged trading of banned arms and weapons-related material.

The US has been monitoring a North Korean freighter because of suspicions it may be carrying illegal weapons, possibly to Burma. The ship, however, turned around a week ago without stopping at any port and headed toward home.

Won, the Defense Ministry spokesman, said the Kang Nam 1 was expected to arrived in the North later Monday.

Separately, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman pledged to work with the US to block North Korea from using the Southeast Asian nation's banks for any weapons deals.

"If America has any information that is available to them, then I think they should give it to us so that we can act upon it," Anifah told reporters. "If they have evidence, we'll be most willing to work together to solve this problem."

The assurance came as US envoy Philip Goldberg, in charge of coordinating the implementation of sanctions against Pyongyang, met with Malaysian officials in Kuala Lumpur.

South Korean media have reported that North Korea sought payment through a bank in Malaysia for a suspected shipment of weapons to Burma.

Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul and Julia Zappei in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.

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Asean-Korea summit to highlight Seoul's soft power

By: THITINAN PONGSUDHIRAK

(Bangkok Post) -The summit between Asean and the Republic of Korea on Jeju Island today and tomorrow is a major national event for South Koreans as much as it is a muted affair for their Thai counterparts.

While Thais hardly know about this summit, South Koreans have been exposed to widespread media coverage. Asean members' flags have been raised all over the island. Jeju's international conference centre has frequently been featured on television news coverage. Academics and diplomats have promoted Track Two policy-related conferences ahead of the top-level powwow.

At issue will be South Korea's growing role as a middle power and the decade-long efforts to construct an East Asia Community. For Thailand, the summit will be the first Asean plus meeting since the aborted summits in Pattaya in April.

To be sure, domestic politics will loom large. Thailand's political turmoil has effectively forced the 16 members of the East Asia Summit - Asean plus China, Japan and South Korea, along with India, Australia and New Zealand - to skip a year for their fourth summit. Previous EAS meetings took place in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, Cebu in January 2007 and Singapore in November 2007. But the Thailand-hosted fourth EAS, which was postponed from December 2008 to February 2009 in Pattaya has now been rescheduled for Phuket in October. This means that the annual EAS will now take two years to stage its fourth gathering.

Apart from Thailand's domestic political setbacks to the EAS meeting, Burma's latest crisis over the likely extension of Aung San Suu Kyi's confinement will complicate Asean's intramural dealings and its relationship with the broader Plus Three and other EAS members. The Asean-RoK summit will be the first opportunity for Asean to address the problems posed by Burma's military junta on the grouping's standing in the regional neighbourhood and the world at large.

In addition to Thailand and Burma, Malaysia's internal political game also has raised new concerns about the constraining effects of domestic politics on regional cooperation and integration. Burma's ongoing retardation of democratic rule, Thailand's and Malaysia's apparent and potential democratic setbacks, and the lack of democratisation elsewhere in Asean have cast dark clouds over the 10-member regional organisation in view of its much-advertised pro-democracy charter.

South Korea does not suffer the same constraints. Its democratic consolidation is so pronounced as to have claimed the life from apparent suicide of a former leader who was linked to a corruption scandal. Adept at influence-peddling and outright graft, politicians and leaders in Asean have routinely avoided accountability and jail time. Taking their own lives out of shame and guilt has been unthinkable. Such is the testimony of how far South Korea's democratic rule has progressed from years of military authoritarianism.

Increasingly confident of its democratic credentials and strong economy, Seoul as one of two Asian members in the developed-world Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) club, is charting a new course to befit its new-found status at the forefront of East Asia. The Asean-RoK summit that commemorates 20 years of bilateral relations will showcase a brand new Asean-Korea Centre based in Seoul to promote South Korea's trade and investment ties with Asean countries and to highlight the Asean-Korea free trade agreement.

Moreover, South Korea will announce a considerable increase in its official development assistance for developing Asean countries in line with its developed-country status. The development assistance has long been a cornerstone of Japan's soft power in the region. But South Korea is now poised to flex some soft power projection of its own to the benefit of poorer Asian countries and to help reduce the income gaps among Asean members in particular.

As it views itself as a benign and benevolent middle power, South Korea's "green" strategy warrants attention. It transcends immediate security concerns on the Korean peninsula with a forward-looking role for Seoul on the international stage. Its efforts to tackle global warming and other ecological concerns as a national strategy on a long-term basis are unrivalled in the region.

Yet a broader backdrop at the Asean-RoK summit will be the East Asian Community building. The EAC's impetus is rooted among the Asean Plus Three (APT) countries in the aftermath of the Asian economic crisis during 1997-98. The Chiang Mai Initiative that built on bilateral swap agreements has now been expanded to the tune of US$120 billion (4.2 trillion baht) to promote exchange rate stability in the region, with equal contributions from China and Japan. This is East Asia's most tangible financial cooperation to date, and could have the makings of an Asian monetary fund that was earlier denied by the US and IMF.

But the EAC is challenged by the rapid rise of the EAS with its wider geographical scope. If East Asia is to coalesce and integrate, the EAS is a less promising vehicle than the APT. On this dilemma, Seoul has not made up its mind.

Asean, too, is divided over whether to prioritise the APT over the EAS or the other way around. Security concerns in the region favour the EAS whereas trade and investment trends reinforce the APT. Whichever vehicle gains more weight will determine community-building efforts in East Asia.

While Asean and South Korea are the pivots of East Asia, Seoul is in a much stronger position to nudge the region forward. Asean and its current chair should beware other emerging region-building schemes that are not Asean-centred, such as Australia's Asia-Pacific Community. For Asean, failure to put its house in order will risk it being bypassed and loss of its self-entitled "driver's seat".

Thitinan Pongsudhirak is director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.

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