North Korea fired another short-range missile yesterday and threatened fresh steps to defend itself if world powers impose sanctions for its nuclear test, as tensions persisted on the Korean Peninsula.
North Korea test-fired another missile off its east coast yesterday, the sixth this week, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said.
There was no immediate confirmation but the agency’s reports of five launches earlier this week were later confirmed by Pyongyang.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In a possible sign of trouble ahead, Chinese fishing boats were leaving the tense border area in the Yellow Sea, with the number of vessels more than halving on Thursday, South Korea’s defense ministry said.
North Korea, which has warned it could launch an attack on South Korea, vowed to respond to any fresh sanctions imposed by the UN.
“If the UN Security Council provokes us, our additional self-defense measures will be inevitable,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement carried by official media. “The world will soon witness how our army and people stand up against oppression and despotism by the UNSC and uphold their dignity and independence.”
Tensions have been running high since North Korean leader Kim Jong-il’s regime tested a nuclear bomb on Monday for the second time and renounced the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953.
The UN Security Council has been discussing a response to North Korea’s latest nuclear test, expected to be a resolution condemning the move. But it was not yet clear if that would include new sanctions.
“This is quite a complicated discussion,” British UN Ambassador John Sawers said after the latest round of talks on Thursday. “We need some time.”
South Korea and the US put their troops on the Korean Peninsula on higher alert on Thursday, and Seoul’s defense ministry said forces were keeping a close watch on the land and sea border with North Korea.
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, en route to a regional security meeting in Singapore, accused the North of “very provocative, aggressive” actions.
But Gates said he was unaware of any unusual troop movements in the North, which has around 1.1 million soldiers, compared with 680,000 South Korean and 28,500 US troops south of the border.
“I don’t think that anybody in the [Obama] administration thinks there is a crisis,” Gates told reporters aboard his military jet yesterday morning on his way to Singapore.
“What we do have, though, are two new developments that are very provocative, that are aggressive, accompanied by very aggressive rhetoric,” he said. “And I think it brings home the reality of the challenge that North Korea poses to the region and to the international community.”
“I don’t think there is a need for us to reinforce our military presence in the South. Should the North Koreans do something extremely provocative militarily, then we have the forces to deal with it,” he said.
Gates appeared to try to tamp down some of the tough rhetoric that has flown between Washington and Pyongyang this week. He also cited a silver lining of the situation: an opportunity to build stronger ties with the Chinese government.
“Just based on what the Chinese government has said publicly, they’ve clearly pretty unhappy about the nuclear test in particular, and they weren’t very happy about the missile test either,” he said.
“I don’t want to put the burden solely on China, because the reality is that while China has more influence than anybody else on North Korea, I believe that that influence has its limits. But it is important for the Chinese to be a part of any effort to try to deal with these issues with North Korea,” he said.
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