October 22, 1996
North Korea May Soon Test Missile That Could Hit Japan
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
TOKYO -- North Korea may be preparing to test-fire a missile capable of reaching Japan, adding to anxieties about tensions on the Korean Peninsula, American and Japanese officials say.
North Korea has given no hint that it is planning a test. But experts in Japan and the United States said that a launching platform had been moved out of the assembly plant and that North Korean observation ships had been sent to the area in the Sea of Japan where the missile presumably would land.
"This is a very serious issue," said the State Department spokesman, Nicholas Burns. "We think it would be destabilizing in north Asia to have these types of tests undertaken. North Korea needs to think very carefully about this kind of action."
American diplomats reportedly strongly pressed North Korean counterparts in working-level talks to cancel the test, but it is unclear how the North Korean government will react. By some accounts, one or two delegations from the Middle East -- possibly from Syria and Iran -- are in North Korea, apparently to witness the test with a view toward buying the missile.
North Korea already has some 1,700 Scud missiles, but the test preparations have created anxiety because they appear to be for a more advanced missile, the Rodong 1, with a range of about 625 miles. That would be enough to reach a broad swath of Japan, though probably not Tokyo or American military bases in Okinawa.
Japanese newspapers have printed alarming maps, showing readers just what cities could be within range of a North Korean Rodong 1. The missile, which apparently was last tested in May 1993, has been under development for many years, and some experts believe that it will finally be deployed in the coming months.
North Korea has also alarmed some intelligence experts with a series of puzzling movements of troops and equipment in the last couple of weeks. Officials said that tanks, military aircraft and troops had been redeployed, in some cases closer to front lines, but that the movements seemed to end as mysteriously as they began.
"What they've done is very unusual," an American government analyst said. "Everything they've done has been to reduce our warning time in the event of an attack and make their equipment more lethal."
The analyst said that most of the intelligence had been shared with South Korean officials, but that no one had a clear idea of what the North Koreans were doing.
"We watch the North Koreans pretty carefully," said Jim Coles III, a civilian spokesman for the U.S. forces stationed in South Korea. "The one thing that we can't do is get inside their heads and know what they're going to do ahead of time. They work pretty hard at being unpredictable."
One American official said that the South Koreans had proposed an upgrade in the "watch condition," or intelligence monitoring, on North Korea, but that Gen. John Tilelli, the commander of American forces in Korea, had turned down the request. Coles said South Korea had made no such request.
Tensions have run high on the Korean Peninsula since a North Korean infiltration submarine ran aground in South Korea last month. As angry threats and denunciations flew back and forth, South Korea threatened to hold off on construction of a new nuclear reactor in North Korea. That threatened to scuttle a landmark project under which the North agreed to freeze its nuclear weapons program.
With the whole deal threatening to unravel, a senior State Department official, Winston Lord, traveled to South Korea last week to reassure officials there of American support and to win cooperation again from South Korea.
Lord managed to rescue the nuclear deal, at least for the time being, but North Korea then denounced Lord's visit to South Korea for its emphasis on American-South Korean military cooperation.
"The United States must be mindful," said the North Korean
statement, issued Friday, "that our people and people's army will
never pardon any act of encroaching upon their sovereignty but mete
out a thousand-fold punishment."
Copyright 1996 The New York Times Company
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