[After the United Nations Security Council imposed further
sanctions against the North for its launching of a three-stage
rocket in December and its third nuclear test in February, North Korea has
appeared to harden its stance considerably. It said it would never negotiate
away its nuclear weapons arsenal, but would instead expand it. On Tuesday, it
declared that it would restart a nuclear reactor that gave it a small stockpile
of plutonium and would readjust its uranium-enrichment plant for weapons
efforts.]
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on how the Obama administration is reacting to North Korea's nuclear maneuvers. Video
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SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s defense chief said
on Thursday that North Korea had moved to its east coast a missile with a
“considerable” range, but that it was not capable of reaching the United
States. The disclosure came as the Communist North’s military warned that it
was ready to strike American military forces with “cutting-edge smaller,
lighter and diversified nuclear strike means.”
North Korea has been issuing a blistering series of similar
threats in recent weeks, citing as targets the American military installations
in the Pacific islands of Hawaii and Guam, as well as the United States
mainland. In its latest threat on Thursday, it did not name targets but said it
was authorized to “take powerful, practical military counteractions” against
the threats from B-2 bombers from the United States, B-52 bombers from Guam and
F-22 Stealth jet fighters from United States bases in Japan that have recently
run missions over the Korean Peninsula during joint military exercises with
South Korea.
“The moment of explosion is approaching fast,” the general staff
of the North Korean People’s Army said in a statement carried by the North’s
official Korean Central News Agency. “The U.S. had better ponder over the
prevailing grave situation.”
Most analysts do not believe that North Korea has a missile
powerful enough to deliver a nuclear warhead to the United States mainland or
that it is reckless enough to strike the American military in the Pacific.
Still, with the North’s bellicose postures showing no signs of letting up, the
United States announced Wednesday that it was speeding the deployment of an
advanced missile defense system to Guam in the next few weeks, two years ahead
of schedule, in what the Pentagon said was a “precautionary move” to protect
American naval and air forces from the threat of a North Korean missile attack.
Testifying before a parliamentary hearing, Defense Minister Kim
Kwan-jin of South Korea said the missile North Korea had moved to the east
coast, possibly “for demonstration or for training,” appeared not to be a
KN-08, which analysts say is the closest thing North Korea has to an intercontinental
ballistic missile, though its exact range is not known. The new missile was
unveiled during a military parade in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, last
April.
South Korean media quoted unnamed military sources as saying that
the missile was a Musudan. Deployed around 2007, the Musudan is a ballistic
missile with a range of more than 1,900 miles, according to the South Korean
Defense Ministry. Guam is nearly 2,200 miles from North Korea.
Wee Yong-sub, an army colonel and deputy spokesman for the Defense
Ministry, would say only that the South Korean and American military have been
closely monitoring the movements of all North Korean missiles, including the
Musudan.
“Chances are not high that they will lead to a full-scale war,”
said Mr. Kim, the defense minister, referring to the North Korean threats. “But
given the nature of the North Korean regime, it’s possible that they will
launch a localized provocation.”
On Thursday, for a second straight day, North Korea blocked South
Koreans from crossing the border to enter a jointly operated industrial park,
threatening the future of the last remaining symbol of inter-Korean
cooperation. It also warned that it would pull out more than 53,000 North
Korean workers from the joint factory park, located in the North Korean city of
Kaesong, if taunts from the South Korean news media continued.
After the North’s threat to close the industrial complex last
week, some South Korean media reports said the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un,
would be all talk but no action when it came to the park because he did not
want to risk one of his most precious sources of hard currency.
After the United Nations Security Council imposed further
sanctions against the North for its launching of a three-stage
rocket in December and its third nuclear test in February, North Korea has
appeared to harden its stance considerably. It said it would never negotiate
away its nuclear weapons arsenal, but would instead expand it. On Tuesday, it
declared that it would restart a nuclear reactor that gave it a small stockpile
of plutonium and would readjust its uranium-enrichment plant for weapons
efforts.
Photographs published Wednesday on the Web site 38 North, which follows North Korean developments,
show new construction at the aging reactor, dating back several weeks. Once
operational, the reactor can produce one bomb’s worth of plutonium a year.
The Pentagon’s decision to deploy a new missile defense system to
Guam now is the latest in a series of steps intended to deter the North from
either military action or new missile tests.
Earlier this week, the Defense Department announced that two of
the Navy’s Aegis-class missile defense warships were positioned in the Pacific
to monitor North Korea. Installing the land-based missile system in Guam will
free up the ships, which have radar and interceptor missiles, to be
repositioned closer to the North Korean coast. That would give President Obama
a wider range of options if the North Koreans fire their missiles in a test or
at a target.
“We haven’t made any decisions,” a senior administration official
said. “But we want as many options as possible.”
David
E. Sanger, Mark Landler and Thom Shanker contributed reporting from Washington.
