Spokesman for DPRK Foreign Ministry on rumor about its possible missile launch
KCNA
Pyongyang, March 18 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the DPRK Foreign Ministry answered a question put by KCNA on Tuesday as regards rumors about the DPRK's possible missile launch afloat in the United States and Japan:
There are rumors in the U.S. and Japan that North Korea may launch a ballistic missile again.
The Japanese authorities and some political circles even asserted that if North Korea launches a ballistic missile, it should be "intercepted" or "sanctions" should be applied against North Korea.
It was reported that military hardware has been actually deployed in waters off the DPRK to monitor and intercept missile to be launched.
Lurking behind this is a sinister attempt.
Japan will reportedly launch for the first time a spy satellite by use of its indigenously developed large delivery rocket H-2a on March 28.
It also intends to introduce the Missile Defense System (MD) being pushed by the U.S. in a bid to establish it throughout Japan in real earnest.
The DPRK is the only country to which Japan is hostile among its neighbors.
Therefore, Japan's sending a spy satellite into space and establishing the MD is a hostile act against the DPRK and poses a grave threat to it.
The DPRK-Japan Pyongyang Declaration calls on both sides to refrain from threatening each other.
If Japan pulls up the DPRK over its missile issue to justify Japan's use of the spy satellite and introduction of the MD, this cannot be interpreted as a sincere attitude toward the Pyongyang declaration.
The declaration remains valid only when it is respected by both sides.
There is no law allowing Japan to send a satellite into space and banning the DPRK from doing so.
