North Korean Missile Test Update

UPDATE: SUNDAY 06/18/06 9:38am

(Agencies)North Korea appears to have completed pumping liquid fuel into a long-range ballistic missile, South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency reported Sunday in a dispatch from Washington. In Pyongyang residents were told to hoist flags and turn on radios for a government announcement this afternoon. North Korea was likely to claim it had launched a space shot, the lie it broadcast on its last missile test. The South Korean report, quoting multiple diplomatic sources and monitored in Seoul, said the fuel injection into the Taepodong-2 missile may have been completed. Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said Sunday it will be inevitable for the United Nations Security Council to consider imposing sanctions on North Korea if Pyongyang conducts a missile test. Mr Aso, who made the remarks during a television program, later told reporters that Japan will seek an immediate convening of the UN Security Council if North Korea goes ahead with a test-firing of a Taepodong-2 long-range ballistic missile.

What is North Korea’s version of the story? The closest I could find was this, on FoxNews.com:

"The [North] Korean army and people will do their best to increase the military deterrent with sharp vigilance to cope with the moves of the U.S., which is hell-bent on provocations for war of aggression" on North Korea, said Choe Thae Bok, secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. "If the enemies ignite a war eventually, the Korean army and people will mercilessly wipe out the aggressors and give vent to the deep-rooted grudge of the nation," Choe was quoted as saying by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

UPDATE: Sunday 06/18/06; 8:24p.m.

N.KOREA ’A BUTTON CLICK FROM FROM LAUNCHING MISSILE

Warnings that North Korea appears close to test-firing an intercontinental missile are escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula. North Korea appears to have completed injecting liquid fuel into a long-range ballistic missile, the final stage before the launch, intelligence authorities in the U.S. and Korea said Sunday. That signals a turning point this week since the missile should either be fired or the fuel removed within 24 hours of fuel injection. All that remains is ’the click of a button,’ a Foreign Ministry official said.

But bad weather near Musudanri, North Hamgyong Province where the launch pad is deployed is reportedly making it difficult to conduct an immediate test launch of the Taepodong 2-type missile. It’s likely that weather conditions will remain unfavorable to a test on Monday, a military official said.

Needless to say, the US is not pleased with these developments, and unease over the situation seems to be escalating.  White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, on Fox News Sunday:

"We do not want to have a missile test out of North Korea," Tony Snow told "Fox News Sunday." "The North Koreans themselves decided in 1999 that they would place a moratorium on this kind of testing, and we expect them to maintain the moratorium."

But by this evening, the rhetoric seemed to have racheted up a notch:

"If they go ahead with a test, then we will have to respond properly and appropriately at the time," Snow told CNN’s "Late Edition." Asked if he could explain what that meant, Snow replied, "No."

As The Needle Bends

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