North Korea will pay a price for missile test Seoul

SEOUL, June 26 (Reuters) South Korea warned North Korea today there would be a price to pay if it launched a long-range missile, using its strongest language yet to try to dissuade Pyongyang from a test-flight.

US officials have said North Korea was preparing to test a long-range ballistic missile. Washington and Tokyo have warned Pyongyang of a harsh response if it went ahead with the launch.

''Whatever the nature of the launch object, it is wrong for North Korea to escalate tension this way,'' South Korea's chief presidential adviser on national security, Song Min-soon, said.

''Of course, if North Korea goes ahead with the launch, the government will take measures that will match the seriousness of that,'' Song said in a commentary posted on the presidential Blue House Web site.

South Korea has previously said a missile test would pose a grave danger to regional security.

Song did not say what measures Seoul might take, but South Korean officials have said they would be forced to reconsider fledgling economic ties with the impoverished North in the event of a missile launch.

North Korea said after it launched a missile over Japan in 1998 that it had sent a satellite into orbit. Experts said the North had problems with the missile and did not send a satellite into space.

Experts say North Korea is developing long-range missiles in order to one day deliver a nuclear weapon, but add North Korea is years away from being able to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile.

North and South Korea remain technically at war because they never signed a formal peace treaty to replace the truce that halted the 1950-53 Korean conflict.

REUTERS SI DS1400