North Korean rocket plan causes unease in region

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea said Tuesday it is making "brisk headway" in plans to send a satellite into orbit as part of its space program, a launch regional powers fear is a cover-up for testing a long-range ballistic missile.

Analysts called Pyongyang's announcement a bid for President Obama's attention as he met in Washington with Prime Minister Taro Aso of Japan, an ally in the regional push to get North Korea to give up its nuclear program.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Tuesday that North Korea should focus on its commitments to international negotiators working to get rid of its nuclear weapons.

"Intimidation and threats are not helpful to try to bring about regional stability," Wood said.

North Korea's declaration came just days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, on a trip to Asia, urged the country to put an end to "provocative actions."

"The North has sent the ball back into the U.S. court," said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor at Seoul's Dongguk University, calling the threat a tactic to pressure Washington into opening negotiations surrounding Pyongyang's nuclear program.

The U.N. Security Council passed a resolution prohibiting Pyongyang from engaging in any ballistic activity following a missile launch in 2006. North Korea could face additional sanctions if it violates the resolution.

In New York, U.N. deputy spokeswoman Marie Okabe said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was "monitoring the situation very closely."

North Korea hinted at a plan to launch a satellite last week when it marked leader Kim Jong Il's 67th birthday by asserting North Korea's right to develop a peaceful space program -- words the regime has used in the past to disguise a missile test.

A statement carried Tuesday by state-run Korean Central News Agency said "preparations for launching experimental communications satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 by means of delivery rocket Unha-2 are now making brisk headway" at a site in Hwadae County in the northeast. The statement called the upcoming launch "a giant stride forward" for the country's space program.

The North test-fired a ballistic missile over Japan in 1998, a launch the regime also claimed was a satellite.

Hwadae was the site for the 2006 test launch of North Korea's longest-range missile, the Taepodong-2, which has the potential to reach Alaska. Reports suggest the missile being readied for launch could be an advanced version of the Taepodong-2 with even greater range.

It probably won't be clear if the latest launch is a satellite or a missile test until footage can be analyzed after the event; the trajectory of a missile is markedly different from that of a satellite.

The KCNA report did not say when the launch would take place. Intelligence officials reported a flurry of activity at the site but no sign that a rocket had been mounted on the launch pad, South Korea's Yonhap News Agency said Tuesday. Once mounted, it could take up to seven days to fuel the rocket, experts said.

The satellite announcement comes amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula. South Korean President Lee Myung-bak has pledged to end a decade of unconditional handouts for the nuclear-armed neighbor; the North has ramped up its anti-Lee rhetoric, warning that the Koreas are headed for a military clash.

South Korea's Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee challenged North Korea to prove its intentions were peaceful, telling lawmakers the North "should clearly present evidence that it is a satellite."

Either way, Seoul would consider any launch a "threat" because the technology for launching a missile and a satellite are similar, he said.

The two Koreas fought a bitter three-year war in the early 1950s that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty. They remain divided by the world's most heavily fortified border.

Relations improved as previous South Korean leaders sought to coax the impoverished North to the negotiating table with warm words and unconditional aid.

But that didn't stop the country from launching missiles in 1998 and 2006, then conducting a nuclear test later that year. The first test missile went all the way to Japan, but the launch in 2006 ended in the ocean soon after liftoff.

Experts believe the North has yet to master the miniaturization technology required to mount a nuclear warhead onto a missile. But the test spurred regional powers to hash out a 2007 pact promising Pyongyang aid and other concessions in exchange for disabling its nuclear program.

After blowing up a cooling reactor last June, the North halted disablement just weeks later. Talks in Beijing in December failed to the get the process moving again, with analysts predicting that Pyongyang would wait to see how open Obama is to establishing direct ties.

Reports suggest the missile being prepared for blastoff could be an advanced version of the Taepodong-2 with even greater striking range: the U.S. west coast as well as Alaska.

Analyst Koh Yu-hwan of Dongguk University predicted that any launch would take place after North Korea holds parliamentary elections March 8 and the legislature meets weeks later to "re-elect" Kim as leader. Kim, who reportedly suffered a stroke last August, rules the nation of 23 million with absolute authority.

"The North seems to be presenting all its cards in an attempt to negotiate a package deal with the U.S.," he said.

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Associated Press writers Jae-soon Chang in Seoul, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations and Foster Klug in Washington contributed to this report.