YEONPYEONG, South Korea – North Korea warned Friday it would act in “self-defense” if provoked by the U.N. Security Council, which is considering tough sanctions over the communist country’s nuclear test, and followed the threat with the test launch of another short-range missile.
The North fired the missile from its Musudan-ni launch site on the east coast, a South Korean government official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the matter. It is the sixth short-range missile North Korea has test-fired since Monday’s nuclear test.
The official did not provide further details. But the Yonhap news agency cited an unidentified South Korean government official as saying the missile is a new type of ground-to-air missile estimated to have a range of up to 160 miles (260 kilometers).
Yonhap said the missile is believed to be an improved version of the SA-5, which North Korea introduced in 1963 and deployed in eastern and western parts of the country. The SA-5 was originally produced by the Soviet Union.
North Korea is also showing signs of firing a short-range missile from its west coast, Yonhap said, without elaborating.
With tensions high on the Korean peninsula, Chinese fishing boats left the region, possibly to avoid any maritime skirmishes between the two Koreas. But U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said the situation was not a crisis and no additional U.S. troops would be sent to the region.
North Korea, meanwhile, warned it would retaliate if provoked.
“If the U.N. Security Council makes a further provocation, it will be inevitable for us to take further self-defense measures,” the North’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
North Korea also accused the Security Council of hypocrisy.
“There is a limit to our patience,” the statement said. “The nuclear test conducted in our nation this time is the Earth’s 2,054th nuclear test. The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council have conducted 99.99 percent of the total nuclear tests.”
The North has been strident since its test — which it has also called a self-defensive measure. It did not specify what further action it was considering in response to U.N. resolutions, or what it would consider a provocation.
Fears have increased of military skirmishes, particularly in disputed waters off the western coast, after North Korea conducted the nuclear test on Monday and then renounced the truce that has kept peace between the Koreas since the Korean War ended in 1953.
The waters were the site of two deadly clashes in 1999 and 2002.
From Yeonpyeong, the South Korean island closest to North Korea, about a dozen Chinese ships could be seen pulling out of port in the North and heading elsewhere. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that more than 280 Chinese vessels were fishing in the area earlier this week, but the number has dropped to about 140.
It was not clear if the Chinese vessels, in the area for the crabbing season, were told by the North to leave or if they were leaving on their own for fear of clashes at sea.
“For now, it seems quiet,” said local construction worker Lee Hae-un, 43. “But if North Korea provokes us with military power, I think our government should actively and firmly counteract it.”
South Korean and U.S. troops facing North Korea raised their surveillance on Thursday to its highest level since 2006, when North Korea tested its first nuclear device. About 28,000 American troops are stationed across the South.
North Korea, whose 1.2-million strong military is one of the world’s largest, says it is merely preparing to defend itself against what it says are plans by the United States to launch a pre-emptive strike to overthrow its communist government.
The United States has repeatedly denied any intention to attack North Korea.
In Washington, the Army’s top officer, Gen. George Casey, expressed confidence that the U.S. could fight a conventional war against North Korea if necessary, despite continuing conflicts elsewhere.
But Gates, en route to Singapore for regional defense talks, tried to lower the temperature.
“I don’t think that anybody in the (Obama) administration thinks there is a crisis,” Gates told reporters aboard his military jet early Friday.
Meanwhile, talks at the U.N. Security Council over possible sanctions for the nuclear test were moving forward slowly.
Russia’s U.N. ambassador said Thursday there was wide agreement among key world powers on what a new U.N. resolution should include, but said putting the elements together will take time because the issues are “complicated.”
A list of proposals was sent Wednesday to the five permanent veto-wielding council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — and the two countries most closely affected by the nuclear test, Japan and South Korea.
Diplomats said a draft of the proposed resolution is not expected to be circulated until next week.
The two Koreas technically remain at war because they signed a truce, not a peace treaty, in 1953. North Korea disputes the U.N.-drawn maritime border off their west coast and has positioned artillery guns along the west coast on its side of the border, Yonhap said.
Traffic at the border between the Koreas appeared to be normal. Yonhap said more than 340 South Korean workers crossed to a joint industrial complex in the North.
The two Koreas are also maintaining a communication line to exchange information on commercial vessels passing through each other’s waters, Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.
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Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul, Anne Gearan in Washington, Lara Jakes aboard a U.S. military jet and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam – While worrisome, North Korea‘s nuclear and missile tests have not reached a crisis level that would warrant additional U.S. troops in the region, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.
Gates, flying to Singapore to meet with Asian defense ministers, said he has not seen any moves by North Korea’s military that would prompt the United States to add to the roughly 28,000 troops already in South Korea. He said any military actions would need to be decided upon, and carried out, by broad international agreement.
“I don’t think that anybody in the (Obama) administration thinks there is a crisis,” Gates told reporters aboard his military jet early Friday morning, still Thursday night in Washington.
“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.”
Gates appeared to try to tamp down some of the tough rhetoric that has flown between Washington and Pyongyang this week, since North Korea said it successfully detonated a nuclear device in its northeast on Monday and followed with a series of short-range missile launches.
Gates 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’re clearly pretty unhappy about the nuclear test in particular, and they weren’t very happy about the missile test either,” Gates said. “And my impression is they were surprised by the nuclear test. And so, as I say, I think there may be some opportunities here.”
He added: “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.”
Gates suggested that diplomatic talks among six countries — Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, North Korea and the U.S. — to get rid of all nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula have not worked. He said that while the discussions should continue, the nations other than North Korea now need to focus on what he described as “where do we go from here?”
“I think that they clearly have not had the impact in North Korea that any of us have wanted,” Gates said of the talks. “That doesn’t mean they are useless by any means, and we are still committed to the six-party talks. But I think that we need to figure out a way to try and move forward with North Korea.”
Gates said direct talks between the U.S. and North Korea are, for now, at least, “not the way to go.”
In what the Pentagon called a first for a U.S. defense chief, Gates was to meet with his Japanese and South Korean counterparts at the two-day Singapore conference. He also was to meet briefly with the head of China’s military.
Gates said North Korea would likely dominate the Singapore discussions and hinted that additional economic or military sanctions might be put on Pyongyang as punishment for the tests. But he said that any sanctions should impact the communist government and not its citizens, whom he said have already suffered “enough damage” by their leaders.
He cited North Korean exports of missile and nuclear technology as a top worry, and said the United Nations, and Russia and China in particular, need to be part of any efforts to curb them.
SEOUL, South Korea – North Korea threatened military action Wednesday against U.S. and South Korean warships plying the waters near the Koreas‘ disputed maritime border, raising the specter of a naval clash just days after the regime’s underground nuclear test.
In Washington, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned that Pyongyang faced unspecified consequences because of its “provocative and belligerent” acts.
Pyongyang, reacting angrily to Seoul’s decision to join an international program to intercept ships suspected of aiding nuclear proliferation, called South Korea’s decision tantamount to a declaration of war.
“Now that the South Korean puppets were so ridiculous as to join in the said racket and dare declare a war against compatriots,” North Korea is “compelled to take a decisive measure,” the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement carried by state media.
The North Korean army called it a violation of the armistice the two Koreas signed in 1953 to end their three-year war, and said it would no longer honor the treaty.
South Korea’s military said Wednesday it was prepared to “respond sternly” to any North Korean provocation.
Clinton said “there are consequences to such actions,” referring to discussions in the United Nations meant to punish North Korea for its nuclear and missile tests.
She also underscored the firmness of the U.S. treaty commitment to defend South Korea and Japan, U.S. allies in easy reach of North Korean missiles.
North Korea’s latest belligerence comes as the U.N. Security Council debates how to punish the regime for testing a nuclear bomb Monday in what President Barack Obama called a “blatant violation” of international law.
Ambassadors from the five permanent veto-wielding council members — the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France — as well as Japan and South Korea were working out the details of a new resolution.
The success of any new sanctions would depend on how aggressively China, one of North Korea’s only allies, implements them.
“It’s not going too far to say that China holds the keys on sanctions,” said Kim Sung-han, an international relations professor at Seoul’s Korea University.
South Korea, divided from the North by a heavily fortified border, had responded to the nuclear test by joining the Proliferation Security Initiative, a U.S.-led network of nations seeking to stop ships from transporting the materials used in nuclear bombs.
Seoul previously resisted joining the PSI in favor of seeking reconciliation with Pyongyang, but pushed those efforts aside Monday after the nuclear test in the northeast.
North Korea warned Wednesday that any attempt to stop, board or inspect its ships would constitute a “grave violation.”
The regime also said it could no longer promise the safety of U.S. and South Korean warships and civilian vessels in the waters near the Korea’s western maritime border.
“They should bear in mind that the (North) has tremendous military muscle and its own method of strike able to conquer any targets in its vicinity at one stroke or hit the U.S. on the raw, if necessary,” the army said in a statement carried by state media.
The maritime border has long been a flashpoint between the two Koreas. North Korea disputes the line unilaterally drawn by the United Nations at the end of the Koreas’ three-year war in 1953, and has demanded it be redrawn further south.
The truce signed in 1953 and subsequent military agreements call for both sides to refrain from warfare, but doesn’t cover the waters off the west coast.
North Korea has used the maritime border dispute to provoke two deadly naval skirmishes — in 1999 and 2002.
On Wednesday, the regime promised “unimaginable and merciless punishment” for anyone daring to challenge its ships.
Pyongyang also reportedly restarted its weapons-grade nuclear plant, South Korean media said.
The Chosun Ilbo newspaper said U.S. spy satellites detected signs of steam at the North’s Yongbyon nuclear complex, an indication it may have started reprocessing nuclear fuel. The report, which could not be confirmed, quoted an unidentified government official. South Korea’s Yonhap news agency also carried a similar report.
The move would be a major setback for efforts aimed at getting North Korea to disarm.
North Korea had stopped reprocessing fuel rods as part of an international deal. In 2007, it agreed to disable the Yongbyon reactor in exchange for aid and demolished a cooling tower at the complex.
The North has about 8,000 spent fuel rods which, if reprocessed, could allow it to harvest 13 to 18 pounds (six to eight kilograms) of plutonium — enough to make at least one nuclear bomb, experts said. North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least a half dozen atomic bombs.
Further ratcheting up tensions, North Korea test-fired five short-range missiles over the past two days, South Korean officials confirmed.
Russia’s foreign minister said world powers must be firm with North Korea but take care to avoid inflaming tensions further.
The world “must not rush to punish North Korea just for punishment’s sake,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, adding that Russia wants a Security Council resolution that will help restart stalled six-nation talks over North Korea’s nuclear programs and will not provoke Pyongyang into even more aggressive activity.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urged officials to “remain calm” in the face of North Korean threats, said Lee Dong-kwan, his spokesman.
Pyongyang isn’t afraid of any repercussions for its actions, a North Korean newspaper, the Minju Joson, said Wednesday.
“It is a laughable delusion for the United States to think that it can get us to kneel with sanctions,” it said in an editorial. “We’ve been living under U.S. sanctions for decades, but have firmly safeguarded our ideology and system while moving our achievements forward. The U.S. sanctions policy toward North Korea is like striking a rock with a rotten egg.”
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Associated Press writer Steve Gutterman in Moscow and Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Analysis: N. Korea widens threat, limits US options
WASHINGTON – North Korea‘s nuclear test makes it no likelier that the regime will actually launch a nuclear attack, but it adds a scary dimension to another threat: the defiant North as a facilitator of the atomic ambitions of others, potentially even terrorists.
It also presents another major security crisis for President Barack Obama, already saddled with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a nuclear problem with Iran.
Obama spoke Monday night with the president of South Korea and the prime minister of Japan, assuring both leaders that the U.S. remains committed to the defense of their nations. The White House said in a statement that Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak agreed that the test is “a reckless violation of international law that compels action in response.”
It’s far from clear what diplomatic or other action the world community will take. So far, nothing they’ve done has worked.
At an earlier juncture of the long-running struggle to put a lid on North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the administration of President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s discussed with urgency the possibility of taking military action. That seems less likely now, with the North evidently nuclear armed and the international community focused first on continuing the search for a nonmilitary solution.
Meeting in emergency session in New York, the U.N. Security Council on Monday condemned North Korea’s nuclear test as a clear violation of a previous U.N. resolution banning such testing. The council said it would begin work immediately on a new legally binding resolution.
The North’s announcement that it conducted its second underground test of a nuclear device drew quick condemnation across the globe, including from its big neighbor and traditional ally, China. The Obama administration, which said the North’s action invited stronger, unspecified international pressure, has consistently called for Korean denuclearization but seemed not to have anticipated a deepening nuclear crisis.
Just two weeks ago, the administration’s special envoy for disarmament talks with North Korea, Stephen Bosworth, said during a visit to Asian capitals that “everyone is feeling relatively relaxed about where we are at this point in the process.” If so, they are no longer.
Obama, appearing Monday in the White House Rose Garden, condemned the nuclear test and North Korea’s subsequent test-launch of short-range missiles. He called the actions reckless and said they endanger “the people of Northeast Asia.”
North Korea conducted its first atomic test in 2006 and is thought to have enough plutonium to make at least a half-dozen nuclear bombs. It also is developing long-range ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads, in defiance of U.N. actions.
One of the first estimates of the size of Monday’s nuclear explosion came from the Russian defense ministry, which put the yield at between 10 and 20 kilotons — comparable to the U.S. bombs that flattened Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in August 1945. But a senior U.S. administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it appeared the explosive yield was much smaller, perhaps a few kilotons. The official said more technical analysis would be done in coming days.
The administration official also disclosed that North Korea notified the State Department less than one hour before the explosion that it intended to conduct a nuclear test at an unspecified time. The U.S. then notified China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, the official said.
The United States could still try to resuscitate so-called six-party talks with the North as well as work with other members of the United Nations. North Korea has vowed not to resume participation in the six-party talks with the U.S., Japan, South Korea, China and Russia.
Reflecting his view that only unified international action will compel North Korea to change course, Obama said that Russia and China, as well as traditional U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, have come to the same conclusion: “North Korea will not find security and respect through threats and illegal weapons.”
The Bush administration worked hard to get China, in particular, to press the North Koreans to denuclearize, and it seems likely that Obama will push equally hard with Beijing, which sided with the North Koreans against U.S. and United Nations forces during the 1950-53 Korean War. In recent years the Chinese have openly criticized the North Koreans for the nuclear arms program.
Two of the main worries about North Korea are left unsaid: Would it use a nuclear bomb to attack a neighbor or the United States? And might it continue an established pattern of selling nuclear wherewithal and missiles to foreign buyers?
Graham Allison, an assistant secretary of defense in the Clinton administration and now director of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, said Monday that the international community regularly underestimates North Korean leader Kim Jong Il‘s willingness to do the unexpected.
“Could this guy believe he could sell a nuclear bomb to Osama bin Laden?” Allison asked in a phone interview. “Why not?”
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EDITOR’S NOTE — Robert Burns has covered national security affairs for The Associated Press since 1990.
