North Korea has notified Japan of plans to launch a rocket carrying a satellite between Wednesday and Dec. 1, the Japanese government said Tuesday, with Pyongyang brushing away warnings from Tokyo and Seoul not to go ahead with the move.
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s office said it had “strongly demanded” that North Korea halt preparations for the launch, with Kishida later adding that Japan was preparing for “unforeseen circumstances” and cooperating with the United States, South Korea and others.
“Even if the purpose is to launch a satellite, using ballistic missile technology is a violation of a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions,” Kishida told reporters.
“This is also a major national security concern,” he added.
Any launch — which could fly over far-flung southern Japanese islands — would be Pyongyang’s third attempt this year, following the reclusive nation's failure to put a military spy satellite into orbit during launch attempts in May and August.
The Japan Coast Guard said that a navigational warning notice had designated three areas believed to be where debris from a rocket could fall — two west of the Korean Peninsula and the other the east of the Philippine island of Luzon. The notice did not note the country of origin, but the areas were the same as those listed in similar notices ahead of the North’s May and August launches.
Pyongyang is prohibited from conducting ballistic missile launches under United Nations Security Council resolutions, but has in the past said these measures do not cover its nominally civilian space program. Japan, South Korea and the U.S., however, view the launch of satellites as a thinly veiled means of advancing its missile program, since similar technology is employed.
Since 1998, the North has attempted six satellite launches, with just two appearing to have been successfully placed in orbit, the last in 2016.
Although the rocket or debris are unlikely to fall inside Japan's exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles (370 km) from its coast, Tokyo has deployed countermeasures in preparation for a potential shootdown. It has sent PAC-3 ground-based missile-defense batteries to Okinawa's Miyako, Ishigaki and Yonaguni islands, while also deploying Maritime Self-Defense Force Aegis destroyers — which are equipped with SM-3 interceptors — to waters around Japan.
On Monday, South Korea’s chief director of its Joint Chiefs of Staff, Lt. Gen. Kang Ho-pil, said Pyongyang could make another satellite launch attempt as early as "this week or so."
"(We) sternly warn North Korea to immediately stop the 'military reconnaissance satellite' launch, of which preparations are underway," the Yonhap news agency quoted Kang as saying. "If North Korea goes ahead with the military reconnaissance satellite launch despite our warning, our military will come up with necessary measures to protect the lives and safety of our people."
It was not clear what the “necessary measures” included, but hours after the launch window emerged, the nuclear-powered USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier arrived at the South Korean naval base in the port city of Busan.
South Korea said the arrival of the Vinson — the third aircraft carrier to visit the country this year — demonstrated Washington and Seoul’s “firm resolve to respond to advancing North Korean nuclear and missile threats.”
During the North’s August failure, its Chollima-1 launch vehicle experienced an issue with its third stage, after problem-free flights of the first and second stages. In May, the rocket crashed into the sea shortly after launch.
The North had said after the August failure that it would try again in October, but was silent until Tuesday after that deadline passed.
The latest announcement comes after a period of relative quiet — the North last fired off a missile on Sept. 13 — though the country has continued to spew vitriol over Tokyo, Seoul and Washington’s growing trilateral security ties.
That missile launch came just ahead of a visit to Russia by leader Kim Jong Un for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
South Korea has said Pyongyang is providing Moscow with weapons in exchange for Russian space technology know-how. Putin suggested during his meeting with Kim that his country could help the North build satellites.
North Korea’s state-run media has called the country’s spy satellite program an "indispensable" measure to counter U.S. and allied space militarization.
The North has been seeking to put a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit as part of a broader modernization plan to monitor U.S. and allied forces, though defense experts say doing so can be exceedingly difficult.
Observers also say it’s unclear how advanced a North Korean satellite would be, considering the daunting challenges of camera performance, hard-to-come-by components and limited time windows for snapping shots of military sites.
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