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North Korean missile threat played down

The US, Japan and South Korea yesterday played down North Korea's test-firing of a short-range missile off its east coast, saying it was not related to Pyongyang's drive for nuclear weapons.

US officials confirmed Sunday's test, a day before the opening of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in New York, and called on its allies to express concern.

But they said they were not surprised by the incident, the latest short-range missile test apparently timed for political impact.

"We're not surprised by this. The North Koreans have tested their missiles before. They've had some failures," White House chief of staff Andrew Card told CNN TV.

"We have to work together with our allies around the world -- especially the Japanese, the South Koreans, the Russians and the Chinese -- to demonstrate that North Korea's actions are inappropriate," Card said.

"We don't want them to have any nuclear weapons, we don't want the Korean Peninsula to have any nuclear weapons on it."

Japan said it was treating the test as a "domestic" drill.

"It was like a normal domestic military drill. It has no impact" on Japan's security, said Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, the government spokesman.

"The missile is intended for surrounding waters [of North Korea] and it is not like having a range of several hundreds of kilometers," he said, adding that it did not violate a moratorium promised to Tokyo in 2002.

Tokyo has been on edge over North Korea since Pyongyang fired a Taepodong-1 long-range missile over Japan and into the Pacific Ocean in 1998. North Korea announced a self-imposed ban on long-rang missile testing a year later.

South Korea also downplayed the test and warned against linking it to the nuclear dispute, which flared in 2002. The six-nation talks aimed at resolving it have been stalled for nearly a year.

"The missile that North Korea recently launched is a short-range missile with a range of some 100 kilometers and is far from the one that can carry a nuclear weapon," Deputy Foreign Minister Song Min-soon told Yonhap news agency.

"This is not a case to be linked to the nuclear dispute," he said, adding that Seoul had not seen any sign of nuclear testing by its northern neighbor.

In February North Korea pulled out of the six-way talks, also involving China and Russia, citing US hostility towards Pyongyang, and announced it had nuclear weapons.

Last month it raised tensions further by shutting down its nuclear power plant in an apparent bid to unload and reprocess spent fuel for weapons-grade plutonium.

Previous short-range missile tests have been timed to send signals. In March 2003, it lobbed two short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan.

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