North Korea 'preparing long-range missile launch'

By Jack Kim in Seoul

(News.com) -NORTH Korea is assembling a missile that could hit US soil and may test-launch it as early as this month, a newspaper reported, as a US envoy urged Pyongyang to cease provocations and return to disarmament talks.

The hermit state's nuclear test last week, putting it closer to having a working atomic weapon, has already prompted the US and South Korean forces to raise their military alert for the divided peninsula.

North Korea, which began ratcheting up regional tensions when it fired a long-ranged rocket over Japan in April, also test-fired a barrage of short-range missiles last week and threatened to attack the South.

"The ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) is covered up so it's tough to be absolutely clear but it looks similar to the Taepodong-2 fired in April but longer," the JoongAng Ilbo newspaper quoted a South Korean government source as saying.

The April launch triggered tightened UN Security Council sanctions that Pyongyang called unacceptable, threatening to launch an ICBM unless the world body apologised.

The newspaper said the missile has been moved to a hangar for assembly at the North's newly built west coast Tongchang-ri missile range for a launch that could come as early as mid-June. The launch area is about 90 km west of Yongbyon, the North's main nuclear complex. However, weapons experts say the impoverished state does not yet have the technology to turn its nuclear material into a warhead to put onto a missile.

It also looks ready to test launch three to four mid-range missiles with ranges that can hit all of South Korea and most of Japan, South Korean lawmakers said on Tuesday after a defence briefing.

"Now is the time for North Korea, rather than continuing to take more dangerous and provocative actions, to recognise that the better course is to re-engage and to get back on the path of negotiations towards denuclearisation," US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said after meeting foreign ministry officials in Seoul.