Japan deployed a warship off the Korean Peninsula as its media speculated yesterday that Pyongyang might be about to test fire a ballistic missile and Washington claimed the communist country will soon be able to enrich uranium needed for atomic bombs.
US Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly warned that the North might be months away from being able to produce nuclear weapons using uranium.
Japan's Defense Agency said yesterday it dispatched a destroyer, with top-of-the-line AEGIS surveillance capabilities, to the sea between Japan and North Korea last Friday.
The announcement came as Yomiuri, Japan's largest newspaper, said Pyongyang might be preparing to test-fire its Rodong ballistic missile -- which has an estimated range of up to 1,500km, making it capable of reaching almost anywhere in Japan.
"We don't have credible information that says whether North Korea is now preparing to launch a ballistic missile," Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said of the report, which came just days after Pyongyang test-fired a smaller missile from a warship between Japan and Korea. "But of course, given the situation, we are paying close attention and gathering information."
Defense Agency spokesman Yoshiyuki Ueno described the warship's mission as part of regular patrol activities.
The US Air Force also prepared to resume reconnaissance flights in that area, suspended since communist jets briefly intercepted a US reconnaissance plane 10 days ago, a senior US official said as Washington warned that the North was pushing ahead with two nuclear programs -- one uranium-based, the other a more advanced plutonium-based one.
The US says the plutonium project is already capable of yielding enough weapons-grade material to build six to eight nuclear bombs within months.
In a new warning about the uranium program, Kelly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in Washington, "It is only probably a matter of months, and not years, behind the plutonium."
With the dispute dragging on, South Korean Foreign Minister Yoon Young-kwan criticized Pyongyang's objections to multilateral talks as "illogical" yesterday. A day earlier, he urged Washington for more willingness to resolve the dispute over Pyong-yang's nuclear programs.
"North Korea must come out with a more open stance," Yoon told South Korea's MBC radio.
North Korea insists on direct talks with the US, but Washington rejects the demand as a ploy to extract more concessions.
Yoon said the eventual solution of the nuclear crisis would involve economic aid for the impoverished country, inevitably from Russia, China, Japan and South Korea as well as the US.
"It's illogical to exclude the potential aid providers from the talks," Yoon said.
Seoul wants the two adversaries to use both direct and multilateral approaches to end the dispute peacefully through dialogue.
In Washington, Kelly said Pyongyang must agree to eliminate its nuclear weapons programs and meet US requirements in five other areas -- human rights, terrorism, missile development and export, and conventional forces near South Korea's border -- for Washington to fully engage with the communist state.
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