S. Korea warns N. Korea against missile test plan

[February 12, 2009]  SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- South Korea's foreign minister warned North Korea on Thursday against test-launching a long-range missile, saying such an action would threaten regional stability and trigger punitive measures.

South Korean and Japanese media have reported since last week that the North was moving a suspected long-range missile capable of reaching the western United States to a launch pad. The reports came days after Pyongyang declared it would scrap peace accords with Seoul and warned of a war on the divided peninsula.

"If North Korea pushes ahead with a missile launch, this will be an act that seriously threatens stability on the Korean peninsula and in northeast Asia as well as South-North ties," Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan told reporters.

Yu said he could not provide details on the North's reported plan to test a missile because it involves military intelligence.

The minister said such a test launch would isolate the North and trigger punitive measures, citing U.N. Security Council resolutions condemning the country's missile tests in 1998 and 2006.

"I want to tell you that (a missile test) will not benefit North Korea at all," Yu said.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported Wednesday that a vehicle carrying radar equipment was seen moving to a launch site on the North's eastern coast from a munitions factory near Pyongyang.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Intelligence Service have refrained from commenting on the report, citing the sensitivity of intelligence matters.

North Korea's saber-rattling has been interpreted as an attempt to grab President Barack Obama's attention. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is scheduled to visit South Korea next week.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert A. Wood told reporters Wednesday that the U.S. doesn't want to see "provocative acts on the part of the North that will raise tensions" in the region.

Yu said he plans a "wide-ranging exchange of opinions" on North Korea and its nuclear program with Clinton during her visit to Seoul.

International disarmament talks on North Korea's nuclear programs have been stalled for months over how to verify the country's past nuclear activities.

The U.S. is expected to name a special envoy on North Korea and The Associated Press has learned that Stephen Bosworth, a former senior State Department official and U.S. ambassador to South Korea, has been offered the job.

Yu said Bosworth has "lots of knowledge and experience" on North Korea.

Separately, South Korea's new Unification Minister Hyun In-taek said Thursday that he is willing to meet North Korean officials "at any time, at any place" to resolve strained ties.

Hyun, a U.S.-educated professor, is a key architect of President Lee Myung-bak's hardline North Korea policy and Pyongyang has warned his appointment would further worsen ties.

Ties between the Koreas have soured since the conservative Lee took office one year ago and broke with the two previous administrations' policy of providing unconditional aid to the North. Pyongyang has responded by cutting off ties, halting inter-Korean projects and restricting the number of South Koreans who can cross the border.

The rival states are still technically at war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

[Associated Press; By HYUNG-JIN KIM]

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