South Korea yesterday condemned North Korea’s planned rocket launch as a “grave provocation,” saying it was a disguised attempt to develop a long-range ballistic missile capable of delivering nuclear weapons.
Seoul also extended a security alert in the capital and said it was concerned the North might follow the ballistic missile launch with another nuclear test.
The North announced on Friday it would put a satellite into orbit next month, barely two weeks after reaching an agreement with Washington to suspend long-range missile launches as part of a deal to restart food aid.
“Our government defines North Korea’s so-called working satellite launch plan as a grave provocation to develop a long-distance delivery means for nuclear weapons by using ballistic missile technology,” South Korean presidential spokesman Park Jung-ha said in a statement.
Washington says the North’s long-range ballistic missile program is progressing quickly and last year said the US mainland could come under threat within five years.
The North has twice tested a nuclear device, but experts doubt whether it yet has the ability to miniaturize an atomic bomb to place atop a warhead.
Pyongyang is believed to have enough fissile material to make up to a dozen nuclear bombs and in 2010 it unveiled a uranium enrichment facility to go with its plutonium program, which opened a second route to making an atomic weapon.
Yesterday, South Korean President Lee Myung-bak met with the foreign and security-related ministers to discuss the North’s surprise announcement, which also flies in the face of a UN Security Council resolution banning long-range missile launches.
Park said in a statement that Seoul would work closely with the US, Japan, China and Russia — all members of the six-party forum which deals with the North’s nuclear program — during next week’s Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul.
The South’s defense ministry said it had established a team to monitor the rocket launch and would maintain a heightened defense alert for the Security Summit in Seoul through to the rocket launch, scheduled for between April 12 and April 16.
Ministry spokesman Yoon Won-shik told reporters that Seoul and Washington would use “surveillance assets” to watch the missile base in Tongchang-ri and follow the flight path after it is launched.
AGING: As of last month, people aged 65 or older accounted for 20.06 percent of the total population and the number of couples who got married fell by 18,685 from 2024 Taiwan has surpassed South Korea as the country least willing to have children, with an annual crude birthrate of 4.62 per 1,000 people, Ministry of the Interior data showed yesterday. The nation was previously ranked the second-lowest country in terms of total fertility rate, or the average number of children a woman has in her lifetime. However, South Korea’s fertility rate began to recover from 2023, with total fertility rate rising from 0.72 and estimated to reach 0.82 to 0.85 by last year, and the crude birthrate projected at 6.7 per 1,000 people. Japan’s crude birthrate was projected to fall below six,
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