North Korea launches missiles hours after US space shuttle blasted off from its Florida launch-pad

North Korea launched at least six missiles today, including a long-range Taepodong-2, defying the international community after weeks of warnings to avoid such a provocative step. The Taepodong-2, a multi-stage missile that might be able to reach Alaska, apparently failed 40 seconds into its flight, US officials said.

The United Nations (UN) security council was to meet later in the day, at Japan's request, to discuss the latest move by the reclusive Stalinist state, diplomatic sources said. South Korea's military stepped up its alert level after the launch, Yonhap news agency cited a military source as saying.

The two Koreas are technically still at war more than half a century after the inconclusive truce which halted the 1950-1953 Korean conflict. Some 30 000 US troops remain in South Korea under a mutual defence treaty. Stephen Hadley, the US national security adviser, called the multiple firings "provocative behaviour", but said they posed no threat to US territory.

He said the launches might have been a Pyongyang attempt to steal the nuclear spotlight away from Iran, which has been the main focus of US nuclear diplomacy in recent months. "Obviously, it is a bit of an effort to get attention, perhaps because so much attention has been focused on the Iranians," said Hadley.

But like many US officials, he said it was impossible to be sure about Pyongyang's motives.

North Korea, whose government pays close attention to symbolic gestures, chose July 4, the day the United States marks Independence Day. The launch came just hours after the US space shuttle Discovery blasted off from its Florida launch-pad.

Fireworks
Japan said it would consider immediate economic sanctions against North Korea. NHK television reported that the government had banned visits by North Korean ferries for six months. The Japanese yen and the South Korean won both slipped against the dollar on the launch news, with Tokyo and Seoul stock markets also lower.

In Seoul, the government said South Korean authorities would take action if necessary. Tokyo also called on Pyongyang to return to six-country talks on ending its nuclear weapons programme, which have been stalled since November.

"It is regrettable and we protest strongly against North Korea for going ahead with a launch despite warnings from relevant countries, including Japan," said Shinzo Abe, the Japanese chief cabinet secretary.
 

The North's state-run media said Wednesday that the country was prepared to cope with any provocation by the United States. The announcer on the Korean Central Broadcasting Station did not mention the missile tests earlier in the day.

He also said North Korea's "strong war deterrent" has kept the country at peace. The state-run media often accuses Washington of planning an attack on Pyongyang.

An official at the South Korea Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that North Korea had tested a seventh missile that was either short- or medium-range. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing agency rules, had no additional details.

Japan's Kyodo News agency reported that the missile landed six minutes after launch, but did not say where. The chief of Russia's general staff said that Russian tracking systems showed that Pyongyang may have launched up to 10 missiles during the day, the Interfax news agency reported.

The missiles, all of which apparently fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan, provoked international condemnation, the convening of an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and calls in Tokyo for economic sanctions against the impoverished communist regime.

North Korea remained defiant, with one official arguing that the country had the right to such launches. The tests and the impenitent North Korean attitude raised fears that further firings could follow.

U.S. officials said North Korea fired a long-range Taepodong-2 early in the day, but that it failed shortly after takeoff, calling into question the technological capability of North Korea's feared ballistic missile program. Pyongyang last fired a long-range missile in 1998.

The bold firings came under close international scrutiny of the North's missile launch facilities. The North American Aerospace Defense Command monitored the launches as they progressed but soon determined they were not a threat to the United States, a spokesman said.

Some feared more firings. Pyongyang could test additional missiles soon despite the international outcry over Wednesday's launches, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said after making a protest via telephone to North Korea's ambassador to Canberra, Chon Jae Hong.

"We think they probably do intend to launch more missiles in the next day or two," Downer told reporters, without explaining if the possibility of more tests came up in his talk with Chon.

South Korea, separated from the North by the world's most heavily armed border, said the test launches would further deepen its neighbor's international isolation, sour public opinion in the South toward Pyongyang and hurt efforts to control weapons of mass destruction.

The tests, which came as the United States celebrated the Fourth of July and launched the space shuttle Discovery, appeared timed to draw the most attention from Washington. Some speculated that Pyongyang wanted some of the spotlight focused on Iran's nuclear program.

"North Korea wants to get the U.S. to direct bilateral negotiations by using the missile card," said Paik Hak-soon, a North Korea expert at the Seoul-based Sejong Institute. "Timing the launch date on July 4 is an attempt to apply maximum pressure on the U.S. government."

North Korea remained undaunted. A North Korea Foreign Ministry official told Japanese journalists in Pyongyang that the regime there has an undeniable right to test missiles.

"The missile launch is an issue that is entirely within our sovereignty. No one has the right to dispute it," Ri Pyong Dok, a researcher on Japanese affairs at the North's Foreign Ministry, said on footage aired by Japanese television network TBS. "On the missile launch, we are not bound by any agreement."

Japanese national broadcaster NHK reported that an unidentified Foreign Ministry official in Pyongyang acknowledged the firing of the missiles, but Ri told reporters that diplomats such as himself are unaware of what the military is doing.

In Russia, Interfax quoted the army chief of staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky as saying the number of missiles fired by North Korea could be higher than the six cited by the U.S., Japan and South Korea.

"According to various data, 10 missiles were launched. Some say that these were missiles of various classes; however, some claim that all missiles were intercontinental," Baluyevsky was quoted as saying at a news conference in the Russian Far East city of Chita.

In Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso warned of a "very high possibility" the U.N. would level economic sanctions against North Korea. Japan also protested the launches officially through the Chinese capital, and banned a North Korean ferry from Japanese ports for six months.

The tests followed weeks of mounting speculation that North Korea would launch a Taepodong-2. U.S. intelligence reports indicated Pyongyang was taking steps to prepare for a launch, but the timing was unknown. North Korea refused to confirm the preparations, but insisted it had the right to such a test.

The test was likely to cast a pall over efforts to lure North Korea back to stalled six-party talks on its nuclear weapons program. Pyongyang has boycotted the negotiations to protest a U.S. crackdown on alleged North Korean counterfeiting and other financial crimes. A North Korean official said Wednesday his country would stand by that stance.

Diplomatic moves over North Korea gathered pace. U.S. nuclear envoy Christopher Hill was to leave Washington for the region later on Wednesday, and the launches coincided with a trip by South Korea's security chief to Washington for consultations. China's vice-premier was also scheduled to go to Pyongyang next week.

China, North Korea's neighbor and most important ally, urged all parties to remain calm.

"We are seriously concerned with the situation which has already happened," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a brief statement posted on the ministry's Web site.

"We hope that all the relevant sides ... do more things which are conducive to peace and stability ... and not take any actions to escalate and complicate the situation," the statement said.

Two U.S. State Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the long-range missile was the Taepodong-2, North Korea's most advanced missile with a range of up to 9,320 miles. Some experts believe it could reach the United States with a light payload.

The missiles all landed hundreds of miles away from Japan and there were no reports the missiles caused damage within Japanese territory, said Japanese spokesman Shinzo Abe.

North Korea's missile program is based on Scud technology provided by the former Soviet Union or Egypt, according to American and South Korean officials. North Korea started its Rodong-1 missile project in the late 1980s and test-fired the missile for the first time in 1993.

North Korea had observed a moratorium on long-range missile launches since 1999.

AP reporters Larry Margasak in Washington, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Eric Talmadge in Tokyo, Judith Ingram in Moscow and Kwang-tae Kim and Jae-soon Chang in Seoul contributed to this report.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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The missiles, all of which apparently fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan, provoked international condemnation, the convening of an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council and calls in Tokyo for economic sanctions against the impoverished communist regime.

North Korea remained defiant, with one official arguing that the country had the right to such launches. The tests and the impenitent North Korean attitude raised fears that further firings could follow.

U.S. officials said North Korea fired a long-range Taepodong-2 early in the day, but that it failed shortly after takeoff, calling into question the technological capability of North Korea's feared ballistic missile program. Pyongyang last fired a long-range missile in 1998.

The bold firings came under close international scrutiny of the North's missile launch facilities. The North American Aerospace Defense Command monitored the launches as they progressed but soon determined they were not a threat to the United States, a spokesman said.
 

WASHINGTON — President Bush expressed concern for the people of North Korea today as he called on the country's leadership to abandon its missile program and end a self-imposed isolation that he said was only deepening.

The North Koreans "have isolated themselves further" by the missile tests they undertook early today, Mr. Bush said, vowing to work with allies of the United States to pressure North Korea to "verifiably abandon its weapons programs."

As he has before, Mr. Bush said the Pyongyang dictatorship can only help itself by doing so. "The North Korean government can join the community of nations and improve its lot," Mr. Bush said. "It's their choice to make."

The president spoke as the United Nations Security Council met in emergency session to consider a resolution condemning North Korea for test-firing seven missiles early today, including an intercontinental missile that failed 42 seconds after it was launched.

Mr. Bush's remarks, delivered as he met in the Oval Office with President Mikhail Saakasvili of Georgia, seemed calibrated to point out a failure in the North Korean experiment while reiterating the United States' concern over the launches.

Noting that a North Korean intercontinental missile "tumbled into the sea" after a short flight, he quickly said that fact "doesn't, frankly, diminish my desire to solve this problem."

When he was asked what diplomatic steps could be taken to further isolated a country that is already one of the most insular in the world, Mr. Bush replied somewhat indirectly, saying that he was "deeply concerned" about the plight of ordinary North Koreans, who have been suffering from shortages of basic necessities for years, even as its leadership spends heavily to maintain a sizable army.

Mr. Bush said the "international community" must continue to pressure Kim Jong Il, the North Korean dictator, to renounce his missile ambitions. "There is a better way forward for his people," Mr. Bush said.

His remarks followed a flurry of diplomatic activity and reaction in Washington, at the United Nations in New York and abroad over the latest sword-rattling by North Korea, a small barrage of launchings that began before dawn today in defiance of warnings from President Bush and the governments of Japan, South Korea and China.

In New York, Kenzo Oshima, the United Nations ambassador from Japan, which requested the Security Council session, said after a preliminary round of talks, "We hope that the response of the council is swift, strong and resolute."

There were hints, however, that harshly punitive measures would be resisted by China and Russia.

Japan and South Korea imposed some economic penalties on North Korea today, and Mr. Oshima said that the council would be considering possible sanctions.

The White House spokesman, Tony Snow, said that intelligence reports were indicating that North Korea may fire a few more short- or medium-range missiles in the next few days.

One of the seven missiles fired over the Sea of Japan today was the intercontinental missile that had been at the center of recent tensions with North Korea, known as the Taepodong 2. American spy satellites have been watching the missile for more than a month as it was set up and fueled on a remote launching pad.

The multistage missile is designed to be capable of reaching Alaska, and perhaps the West Coast of the United States, but American officials who tracked its launching said it fell into the Sea of Japan before its first stage burned out.

"The Taepodong obviously was a failure — that tells you something about capabilities," Stephen Hadley, President Bush's national security adviser, told reporters on a conference call Tuesday evening in Washington.

But other officials warned that even a failed launching was of some use to the North Koreans, as their engineers diagnose what went wrong and learn how to improve the liquid-fueled rocket.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today that the international condemnation of the missile firings shows that North Korea "perhaps miscalculated" and should "change its behavior."

"Whatever they thought they were doing, they got a very strong response from the international community," Ms. Rice said.

The secretary, who appeared at a question-answer session in Washington with Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, said "a number of tools" are available to get the North Koreans to stop engaging in the "brinksmanship" that it has long embraced.

Some analysts have speculated that North Korea could have conducted the launchings as a way of increasing pressure on the United States to agree to bilateral negotiations in place of the long-stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear program.

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Video: U.N. Condemns Missle Test

All 15 members of the United Nations Security Council agree to condemn North Korea for firing test missiles into the Sea of Japan. (Producer: Emily B. Hager)