N Korea missile would be threat to region: Japan

Tokyo, June 19: A missile test launch by North Korea would be seen as a threat to regional security, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe said today.

US officials have said North Korea is believed to have completed fuelling a missile that might be capable of reaching as far as Alaska, raising the probability of an imminent launch.

Abe declined comment on the report but reiterated that Japan would join the United States in a sharp response if a test went ahead.

''If there is a launch, it would be a threat to the security of the region,'' he told a news conference, noting that Japanese and US officials had been in touch over the weekend and would remain in close contact.

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso said in a television interview over the weekend that Japan would seek an immediate meeting of the UN Security Council if Pyongyang test-fired a missile.

Many experts have said North Korea has missiles that could hit all of South Korea and probably all of Japan.

It has been modernising its arsenal and trying to improve problems with accuracy, but it lacks an operational missile that can hit the continental United States, the California-based Center for Nonproliferation Studies said in a recent report.

A launch would almost certainly involve a Taepodong-2 missile with an estimated range of 3,500 to 4,300 km, US officials have said. At that range, only parts of Alaska in the United States would be within reach, other than Asia and Russia.

North Korea shocked the world in 1998 when it fired a Taepodong-1 missile, part of which flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean.

Reuters

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