“There is a genuine world concern, and hopefully a consensus will come from that,” Ann Taylor, British Minister for International Defense and Security, told Reuters in an interview on Sunday on the sidelines of a regional defense conference.

Britain joined the United States, Australia and East Asian defense ministers in condemning North Korea’s latest military moves at the Asia Security Conference in Singapore.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates warned on Saturday at the meeting that Washington would not accept a nuclear North Korea and said it would reach out to other regional powers to stop a growing threat that could trigger an arms race in Asia.

The U.S. and Japan have circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution condemning the test and calling for enforcement of sanctions imposed after Pyongyang’s first 2006 nuclear test, which included a widely ignored limited trade and arms embargo.

Taylor said the Chinese concern voiced at the forum made her hopeful the U.N. resolution would bring “some concerted action.” “It is that unity of action that I think is important here. Because if we only can get the unity of action, the regime in North Korea will understand the strength of feeling and will begin to take notice,” she said.

On Saturday, a top Chinese army official called on North Korea to move to denuclearization and asked all regional parties to stay calm. But he did not mention sanctions. China exports food and energy supplies to neighboring North Korea.

Fellow U.N. Security Council member Russia said last week it was too early to talk about possible penalties. This could mean a split in the Security Council, given that Gates on Saturday had called for sanctions that would bring “real pain” to the North.

Taylor said tougher financial sanctions were a possibility.

“That remains one of the options,” she said. “We’ve got to work these things out with colleagues and partners on the U.N. Security Council and consider what is the next step forward.”

MORE FOR AFGHANISTAN

Taylor also echoed Gates’ call for more troops and other aid from the rest of the world to build infrastructure in conflict-ridden Afghanistan. “We are operating in a difficult area in the south. We are making progress but we could do more with more help from other NATO countries, in terms of military forces, training police, helping establishing the rule of law,” Taylor said.

Gates said on Saturday he was looking to Europeans in particular to do more since previous NATO summits have identified Afghanistan as the alliance’s highest priority, but there was a gap between the rhetoric in NATO and the capabilities members were prepared to put forward.

The United States leads a coalition from more than 40 countries in Afghanistan and is adding another 20,000 troops to the 38,000 there, to counter gains by a resurgent Taliban.

Britain hopeful on U.N. action over North Korea

North Korea ramped up tensions this week with a series of provocations rarely seen since the 1950-53 Korean War, including war threats, missile launches and a nuclear test that puts it closer to having an atomic bomb.

The joint command for the 28,500 U.S. troops that support South Korea’s 670,000 soldiers has raised its alert a notch to signify a serious threat from North Korea, the South’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.

It is the highest threat level since the North’s only other nuclear test in October 2006.

North Korea looks certain to face fresh sanctions for defying a U.N. resolution by exploding a nuclear device for a second time, Western diplomat said, with a vote in the 15-nation Security Council expected next week.

North Korea could be set for further provocations that include additional short-range missile tests off its west coast, the South’s Yonhap news agency on Wednesday night quoted an unnamed government source as saying.

Analysts said the North’s saber-rattling might be partly aimed at firming leader Kim Jong-il’s grip on power and helping him draw up succession plans in Asia’s only communist dynasty after a suspected stroke in August raised questions over his rule.

Weapons experts point out that while North Korea is pushing hard to develop a nuclear arsenal, it does not have an effective way to attack with an atomic warhead or bomb.

Security Council powers have agreed in principle that North Korea must face sanctions, Western diplomats said on Wednesday.

Possible steps include a ban on importing and exporting all arms and not just heavy weapons, asset freezes and travel bans for North Korean officials, and placing more firms on a U.N. blacklist.

The measures would expand on sanctions approved by the council after Pyongyang’s 2006 nuclear test, penalties that have been widely ignored and left unenforced.

The diplomats said cargo inspections were also possible, although China, worried about instability in its neighbor and the closest Pyongyang can claim as a major ally, is reluctant.

U.S. officials have urged China to pressure North Korea to step back from nuclear brinkmanship and return to stalled disarmament talks. But many Chinese analysts say Washington overstates Beijing’s sway over Pyongyang, as well as their government’s willingness to use that influence.

“Undoubtedly, China also wants a swift and united response, but it probably won’t give the United States all it wants. China has its own worries,” said Shi Yinhong, an expert on regional security at Renmin University in Beijing.

MILITARY ON ALERT

North Korea, which has only become poorer since Kim took over in 1994, has been punished for years by sanctions and is so destitute it relies on aid to feed its 23 million people, but that has not deterred it from provocations.

The U.S. Air Force will deploy 12 advanced F-22 Raptor fighters in the coming days to a base in Okinawa, Japan. The move had been planned in advance and was not related to recent rumblings from Pyongyang, a U.S. Forces Japan spokesman said.

The South’s largest newspaper Chosun Ilbo quoted defense sources as saying the South has been preparing for contingencies such as artillery or missile strikes near a contested sea border off the west coast of the peninsula.

A spokesman for the North’s military on Wednesday said the country could not guarantee the safety of the South’s vessels in those Yellow Sea waters that have been the site of deadly naval skirmishes between the states in 1999 and 2002.

The spokesman also said South Korea’s decision to join a U.S.-led anti-proliferation initiative this week was a declaration of war making the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War invalid. Its military would also attack if the South inspects its ships.

Seoul’s financial markets, which had fallen in the wake of the nuclear test, rose on Thursday although traders said investors were still nervous about what further steps the North might take to raise tension in the economically powerful region.

North Korea kept up its steady string of strident rhetoric, saying in its official media that “a minor accidental clash could lead to nuclear war.”

“As circumstances show, provocations of war on the part of the U.S. and South Korea have gone well beyond the risky level. It’s a matter of time when a fuse for war is triggered,” the North KCNA news agency reported a commentary in a state newspaper as saying.

U.S., South Korea raise military alert on North

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“The projectile launched from North Korea today appears to have passed over towards the Pacific,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

North Korea has said it was putting a satellite into space and but regional powers say Pyongyang is testing a missile designed to carry a warhead to U.S. territory.

Pyongyang said its rockets would drop booster stages to the west and east of Japan.

North Korea has only once tested the rocket, known as the Taepodong-2 missile, in 2006 when it flew for 40 seconds and then exploded.

The first stage booster earlier dropped into the Sea of Japan.

Japan says N.Korea rocket appears to pass over Japan

North Korea launched the rocket at 11:30 a.m. local time, or 10:30 NYTime said the office of the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak. Early reports from the Japanese prime minister’s office indicated that the three-stage rocket appeared to launch successfully, with the first stage falling into the Sea of Japan and the second stage into the Pacific. South Korea vowed a “stern and resolute” response to the North’s “reckless act.”

South Korean officials, after studying the rocket’s trajectory, said it appeared to have been configured to thrust a satellite into orbit, as the North had claimed.

No debris was reported to have fallen on Japanese land. There has been no confirmation of whether the third and final stage of the launching took place.

But what may have mattered most to North Korea was simply demonstrating that it had the ability to launch a multistage rocket that could travel thousands of miles.

The motivation for the test appeared as much political as technological: After acquiring the fuel for six or more nuclear weapons during the Bush administration, and negotiating a halt of its main nuclear reactor in return for aid, North Korea’s recent statements appear to be a bid for attention from the Obama administration.

The Japanese government strongly protested the launching over its territory and asked for an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council.

Lee Dong-kwan, a spokesman for the South Korean president, said, “North Korea’s launch of its long-range rocket poses a serious threat to the stability of the Korean Peninsula and the rest of the world at a time when the entire world is pulling its wisdom together to overcome the global economic crisis.”

Over the years the North has sometimes conducted tests as a gambit to extract concessions for more aid and fuel and to demonstrate its nuclear capabilities.

Manufacturing a nuclear warhead that is small enough, light enough and heat-resistant enough to be mounted atop a missile is far more complex than building a basic nuclear device — and intelligence officials and outside experts believe North Korea is still years from that accomplishment. Typically, it takes many years of experimentation for a nation to learn how to shrink an ungainly test device into a slim warhead.

Nonetheless, the series of tests in recent years — in 2006 and 1998 — is prompting fears of North Korean proliferation among Japanese, Chinese and Western leaders. North Korea’s missiles have ranked among its few profitable exports — Iran, Syria and Pakistan have all been among its major customers. If this long-range test ends up a success, it would presumably make the design far more attractive on the international black market.

The launching provides one of the first tests of Mr. Obama’s reaction to a provocation, on the weekend that he is scheduled to lay out for the first time, in a speech in Prague, his strategy to counter proliferation threats.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ruled out any effort to shoot down the missile if the mission appeared to be a serious effort to launch a satellite. Rather, Mr. Obama’s top aides said during last week’s Group of 20 summit meeting in London that if the missile were launched, they would seek additional sanctions against the country in the United Nations Security Council, perhaps as early as this weekend.

President Bush pressed for similar sanctions after the North’s nuclear test in October 2006, but those sanctions had little long-term effect.

“We have made very clear to the North Koreans that their missile launch is provocative,” Mr. Obama said Friday after meeting with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France in Strasbourg, France. Mr. Obama took the issue up on Wednesday in London with President Hu Jintao of China.

While Washington has signaled calm, the Japanese response has been unusually strong. Japan deployed ships into the Sea of Japan and suggested it would try to shoot down any “debris” from the launching that threatened to hit the country. However, there is no evidence they tried to do so, and on Saturday, to the embarassment of the Japanese military, the country falsely reported twice that the missile had been launched.

With the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, reportedly recovering from a stroke last summer, the missile test may also be an effort by him — or some in the military — to demonstrate that someone is firmly in control and that the country’s missile and nuclear programs are forging ahead. In recent times top American intelligence officials have told Congress they believe Mr. Kim is back in charge of the country, but they admit considerable mystery surrounds the question of whether he has regained all of his faculties.

North Koreans Launch Rocket Over the Pacific

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan says North Korea will be breaking international law if it launches a long-range rocket – regardless of what is on board.

He says any North Korean launch, whether it is a missile or a satellite, will be brought to the United Nations Security Council for a possible response.

North Korea informed international agencies Thursday of launch coordinates for when Pyongyang says it will put a “communications satellite” into space sometime between April 4 and 8.

Leaders in South Korea, the United States, and Japan suspect the real motive for the launch is to test a long-range missile. They say any launch will violate a United Nations resolution imposed in 2006, after North Korea conducted long range missile and nuclear weapons tests within months of each other.

U.N. agencies have advised aircraft and sea vessels of two “danger zones” in waters northeast of North Korea, where stages of the rocket will fall at high speeds back to earth.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura says his country is ready to defend itself if the missile comes too close.

He says Japanese law and national security policy permit the shooting down of any object that looks like it might land on Japanese territory.

The United States has two Aegis naval Destroyers docked in South Korea for annual joint exercises with the South’s forces scheduled to end next week. Choi Kee-dong, the Korean-American commander of the USS Chafee, says ships like his are capable of shooting down ballistic missiles. He says he will execute whatever course of action U.S. policymakers decide upon.

“The U.S. Navy is always prepared to respond in a crisis, and we will do our utmost to make sure that we carry out our mission,” he said.

North Korea says it will consider any attempt to shoot down its missile an act of war.

Pyongyang protested the South’s annual military cooperation with the United States Friday by sealing its border to the South for the second time this week. Hundreds of South Koreans were stranded at a joint industrial park in the North Korean city of Kaesong. Hundreds of other South Koreans were unable to complete travel plans to Kaesong as scheduled.

Japan, South Korea Warn North’s Launch Will Have Consequences

It did not give a date for the launch, but said it would mark a great step forward for the communist state.

Correspondents say the statement is Pyongyang’s clearest reference yet to what neighbours believe may be the imminent test of a long-range missile.

When it tested the Taepodong-1 missile in 1998, it claimed to have put a satellite in orbit.

In July 2006 it test-fired the three-stage long-range Taepodong-2, but the missile blew up shortly after launch.

North Korea’s move comes amid heightened tensions with South Korea, and with Pyongyang pushing for a top spot on the agenda of the new US administration.

Alaska reach

The announcement came in a statement from the national space agency, carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“Full-scale preparations are under way to launch a rocket Unha-2 to put communication satellite Kwangmyongsong-2 into orbit,” it said.

“When this satellite is successfully launched, our space technology will make a great step forward toward becoming an economically strong country.”

The launch is planned from a base in Hwadae in the northeast of the country, the statement said.

Satellite images showed activity at the site, but there was no missile on the launch pad, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing an intelligence official.

The base in Hwadae, called Musudan-ri, was where North Korea test-fired its long-range Taepodong-2 in 2006.

There are fears that the missile, with a theoretical range of 6,700 km (4,200 miles), could be used to target the US state of Alaska.

But when the missile was last tested, it exploded within a minute.

North Korea’s move comes with talks on an aid-for-disarmament deal – involving the US, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea – currently stalled.

Relations between the two Koreas are also tense following South President Lee Myung-bak’s decision to link the provision on bilateral aid to progress on denuclearisation. Pyongyang has recently scrapped several peace agreements with Seoul.

The mooted launch also follows speculation about the health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, who is believed to have suffered a stroke in mid-2008.

On a trip to Asia last week, the new US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned North Korea against any rash moves, saying a test-launch would be “unhelpful”.

North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in October 2006. But experts say it does not yet have the technology to make a nuclear warhead small enough to mount on a missile.

North Korea ‘plans rocket launch

The unusually strong warning comes as North Korea steps up its war rhetoric in anger over South Korean President Lee Myung-bak’s tough stance toward the North.

The North Korean military has said it is “fully ready” for war with the South, and state-run media have warned that clashes between the two sides could break out at any time.

A lawmaker asked Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee how the South Korean military would react if the North fires artillery or missiles at its ships.

“When an enemy missile flies in, while we will take preventive measures, the point of missile launch should be attacked,” Lee Sang-hee responded, according to the Yonhap news agency.

Lee said the military would respond to any provocation but brushed off concerns that a counterattack could lead to a bigger battle.

“The military will give as much response as the enemy provoked in the shortest possible time so that it won’t develop into a full-scale war,” he said.

Choi Jin-hwan, an aide to lawmaker Rep. Hong Jung-wook, confirmed the exchange.

Lee’s comments were unusually strong. It is rare for South Korean officials to openly talk about attacking the North.

The maritime border off the peninsula’s west coast has been the scene of two deadly naval skirmishes, in 1999 and 2002, and is considered the most likely site for an armed clash if tensions continue to rise.

North Korea does not recognize the boundary, drawn by the United Nations at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War, and says the line should be redrawn further south.

Also Friday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il named top military officer and key aide Gen. O Kuk Ryol, 78, to the No. 2 post at the powerful National Defense Commission, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency reported.

Kim replaced his defense minister and another top military official last week, KCNA said.

All three newly named officials are trusted hard-liners, said analyst Yang Moo-jin of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul. He said the appointments suggest Kim is tightening his control over the military.

Since taking office a year ago, South Korean President Lee has stopped unconditional aid to the North until it abides by a pledge to dismantle its nuclear program.

SKorea to retaliate if NKorea attacks

Pyongyang, which may be moving to test-fire its longest range Taepodong-2 missile in a bid to grab the attention of new U.S. President Barack Obama, said it had the right to make such a launch.

Stephen Bosworth, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and now dean at the Fletcher School of diplomacy at Tufts University, said senior North Korean officials he met in his five-day visit to Pyongyang would not confirm or deny any missile launch plans.

“They said we should all wait and see,” he said of the possibility of launches. “There was no threat, no indication that they were concerned. They treated the missile issue as just another run-of-the-mill issue.”

The North Korean officials told Bosworth’s group of seven U.S. academics and former officials that their country wants progress in the six-party nuclear disarmament talks, which have faltered in dispute over the North’s obligations and its demands for more heavy fuel oil shipments.

In what could be seen as a justification for a missile test, North Korea’s communist party newspaper said “our country, as a member of international society, has a right to enter space and compete for space science technology.”

The impoverished North has claimed the Taepodong-2, which fizzled and destructed seconds after it was last test-launched in 2006, is the cornerstone of its space program. Experts said the missile is only for military purposes and designed to eventually hit U.S. territory.

Proliferation experts said the North, which tested a nuclear device in October 2006, does not have the technology to miniaturize a nuclear weapon to mount as a warhead.

Bosworth told reporters at Beijing airport: “We concluded that the outlook is that we can continue to work toward eventual denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”

“They understand that the Obama administration will need some time to sort itself through the (North Korea) policy review and they expressed patience. There’s no sense of alarm or urgency.”

PRIVATE VISIT

Bosworth said the group was a private one, but he would discuss the trip with Obama administration officials.

Sputtering six-way talks on ending North Korea’s atomic arms program sealed an initial agreement offering isolated Pyongyang energy aid and an opening to better international ties in return for shutting and taking apart its Yongbyon nuclear facility that makes arms-grade plutonium.

The six-party talks, held in Beijing, bring together North and South Korea, the United States, China, Japan and Russia.

Under an agreement last year, North Korea was offered up to 1 million tonnes of heavy fuel or equivalent aid in return for progress on denuclearization, but by mid-November, the North had received about half of that amount.

“It’s clear that they will require satisfaction of the commitment for heavy fuel oil,” said Bosworth.

But the U.S. visitors said Pyongyang seemed sincere in wanting progress.

“I don’t think they see any urgency to circumstances, although it is very clear that if there’s a way to complete phase two, there is a real keen interest in doing so,” said Jonathan Pollack, a member of the group who is an East Asia security expert at the U.S. Naval War College on Rhode Island.

Uncertainty about the North’s intentions has been compounded by uncertainty about the health of its top leader, Kim Jong-il, who may have suffered a stroke.

The U.S. visitors said they were given no information about Kim’s health, but Pollack said he felt no sense of drift.

North Korea open to disarmament progress: U.S. expert | International | Reuters

The White House said it would “rethink” its approach to North Korea, which Mr. Bush included as part of the “axis of evil” in 2002 before taking a more diplomatic approach to the country in 2007.

“They should have rethought it about five years ago because these talks were doomed from the outset, and some of us said so,” said John Bolton, a former top-ranking official in the Bush administration who has become one of its loudest critics on this issue.

Pyongyang’s refusal to agree – in writing – to key provisions prompted the abrupt return of U.S. envoy Christopher Hill before the end of the negotiating session.

“We had some very ambitious plans for this round [of negotiations]. Unfortunately, we were not able to complete some of what we wanted to do,” Mr. Hill, an assistant secretary of state, said before leaving Beijing, according to wire service reports.

China was hosting the negotiations as part of the six-party talks, a multilateral process including South Korea, Japan and Russia.

Combined with the failure of Middle East peace talks to produce a hoped-for agreement by the end of this year, Thursday’s events meant that the president and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will leave office empty-handed after attempting to score high-profile wins on two long-running foreign policy problems.

Helmut Sonnenfeldt, an Asian-Pacific affairs analyst at the Brookings Institution, said he hoped that Pyongyang’s isolation would at some point force it to make concessions.

“The North Koreans are digging in again, but I don’t know at what point they may begin to feel that this [intransigence] isn’t going to work that well for them,” Mr. Sonnenfeldt said.

“I would guess the incoming administration will have to go through these talks again,” Mr. Sonnenfeldt said, though he added that the North Koreans likely will “keep fooling around without letting people know what they are going to do.”

Washington Times

But a large number of South Koreans who work at a joint industrial enclave in the North Korean border city of Kaesong were being allowed to keep permits to enter the factory park there, despite an earlier vow by Pyongyang to expel many of them by December 1, officials said.

“Today is the last day of Kaesong tours, and today is the last day of the train runs,” Unification Ministry spokesman Kim Ho-nyeon told a briefing in Seoul.

The border restrictions and the expulsion from the industrial park come about a week before regional powers are expected to meet in Beijing to resume talks on ending the North’s nuclear arms program and compensate it with economic and energy aid.

The last train run of a sole empty cargo car powered by an electric locomotive pulled out of the seldom-used Munsan station for the final run to Kaesong 40 minutes behind schedule.

Train services between the two Koreas were halted during the 1950-53 Korean War. The start of the regular freight train run last year was hailed as a milestone in reconciliation for the two states which, in the absence of a peace treaty, are technically still at war.

But the trains have mostly been empty because it is cheaper for companies at the Kaesong factory park to move goods by trucks. North Korea said in January this year it wanted to halt the service that runs along a 20-km (12-mile) stretch of track.

Analysts said the tours to the city of Kaesong, started about a year ago, might have been viewed by reclusive North Korea as destabilizing because they allowed visitors from the South to see just how destitute their neighbor is and gave its residents a glimpse of their wealthy southern neighbors.

While the border was being shut to trains and tours, as many as 1,700 people have been told they can keep their permits to enter the Kaesong factory zone, spokesman Kim said.

But the first of the approximately 1,000 people, including government officials, began pulling out on Friday and some expressed disappointment that their role was cut short.

“I wish South-North ties would improve as early as possible so that we can return to do our jobs,” Kim Chang-soo, with the joint management office, said as he crossed the border.

The factory park has provided cash-starved North Korea with hundreds of millions of dollars and is expected to be operating near normally on Monday, despite the border clampdown.

“There were always concerns North Korea would use economic projects … as political leverage,” said Dong Yong-sueng, a research fellow at Samsung Economic Research Institute.

He said the real damage to North Korea is that South Korean firms would now hesitate to invest there.

The two Koreas were in talks about allowing even more of the 4,200 pass holders to cross the border regularly, Kim said.

The Kaesong factory park, about 70 km (45 miles) from Seoul, is the only major economic connection between the two Koreas. A total of 88 South Korean firms employ more than 33,000 low-wage North Koreans there to make goods such as watches and clothes.

Reuters