Images from Google Earth show the construction progress of the missile launch pad in Dongchang-ri, Cholsan County, on the west coast of North Korea. The top image is from 2005 and the image below is from 2009. According to the North’s flight plan, its three-stage rocket will be launched westward. The first stage booster is expected to land in the international waters between China and South Korea, while the second stage booster will fall in the waters off the Philippines.

International condemnations and worries are mounting over North Korea’s plans for a satellite launch, seen as a disguised test of military missiles.

The warming bilateral relations between North Korea and the United States sharply deteriorated due to the launch plan, putting the recent aid-for-denuclearization deal at risk of being scrapped.

The U.S. called the rocket launch a “deal breaker” for the bilateral agreement made in February in which the North agreed to halt its nuclear weapons program, including firing missiles, in exchange for receiving 240,000 metric tons of food aid.

“If they were to go forward with this launch, it’s very hard to imagine how we would be able to move forward with a regime whose word we have no confidence in and who has egregiously violated its international commitments,” the U.S. Department of State spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Friday. “Were we to have a launch, it would create, obviously, tensions, and that would make the implementation of any kind of a nutritional agreement quite difficult.”

North Korea has announced its plan to launch long-range rocket Unha-3, carrying the satellite Kwangmyongsong-3, in mid-April to mark the 100th anniversary of country’s late founder Kim Il Sung’s birthday.

What will sit on top is of the most concern - experts say the launch technology of a missile and a satellite is almost the same.

North Korea fired its first satellite, Kwangmyongsong, in 1998, which was viewed as a long-range missile test by the international community.

The North launched the first stage of the Kwangmyongsong-2 (Taepodong-2) in 2006 and completed the second stage in 2009.

The second stage of Kwanmyongsong-2 (Taepodong-2) was launched in 2009 as part of the carrier rocket Unha-2 and failed to reach orbit, according to the U.S. and South Korea, flying only 3,200 kilometers (1,988 miles) and falling into the Pacific Ocean.

Given the previous cases, a nuclear test always comes after a satellite launch in North Korea. Three months after the first stage of the Taepodong-2 in 2006, the first nuclear test was carried out and in 2009, a month after the test-firing of Kwangmyong-2, the regime conducted the second nuclear test.

“Seen in the previous cases, North Korea has a pattern of conducting nuclear tests after missile tests,” Yun Duk-min, a professor at the state-run Institute of Foreign Affairs and National Security, said. “Although there are speculations that the North is launching the satellite to consolidate the Kim Jong-un leadership or gain a bargaining chip in the food deal with the U.S., the important thing is that the launch is part of a procedure to develop missiles. One or two months after the launch, they will possibly conduct a nuclear test.”

Park Yeong-ho, a senior fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification under the Unification Ministry of South Korea, also said, “Currently, there’s not that high of a possibility of a nuclear test, because it apparently breaks the Feb. 29 agreement with the United States. However, if the UN Security Council exerts pressure on North Korea by tightening sanctions again along with Japan and South Korea, they could be forced to conduct the test.”

Eyes are also on the new launch pad in Cholsan County, northwest of the country, where the third Kwangmyongsong satellite will be launched. The previous long-range missiles were launched from a northeastern village in Musudan-ri, Hwadae County.

Experts assume that the newly-introduced launch pad in Cholsan County must be the one in Dongchang-ri, which the North reportedly started to build ten years prior and completed the construction last year.

According to the flight plan of the satellite that North Korea submitted to the International Maritime Organization, the three-stage rocket will be launched toward the southwest. The first stage booster is expected to splash down in the international waters between China and South Korea, 140 kilometers (87 miles) off the South’s Byeonsan Coast, and the second stage will land in the sea 190 kilometers off the eastern coast of the Philippines.

Unlike previous rockets that headed eastward into the Pacific Ocean, the upcoming one will fly toward China, raising concerns of the regime’s closest ally.

“We are closely paying attention to the North’s plan and international communities’ response to it,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said at a regular briefing.

Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Zhijun met with North Korea’s ambassador to China, Ji Jae-ryong, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, and said it is “shared responsibility” to maintain security and peace on the Korean Peninsula and in East Asia, making a rare attempt to discourage the North from the launch.

The response of the Chinese government was distinctive from the one in 2009. At the time, when the North launched the satellite Kwangmyong-2, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said, “A satellite launch is different from missile or nuclear tests and every country has the right of peaceful development in space.” This was interpreted as support for the launch.
 

 

미국 "北 미사일 발사 땐 식량지원 보류"


북한 장거리 미사일 파문
한반도 주변국 반응
러시아도 “심각한 우려” 성명


북한의 ‘광명성 3호 위성 발사’ 선언에 미국이 곤혹스러워하고 있다. 국무부가 16일 새벽(이하 현지시간) 성명을 낸 데 이어 국방부도 같은 날 오후 성명을 내 “북한 지도자들은 결정을 재고하기 바란다”며 “우리는 한국 정부와 동맹국으로서의 의무를 확고하게 지킬 것”이라고 밝혔다.

북한은 위성발사 계획 발표 몇 시간전 미국에 이를 사전통보 했다.

빅토리아 눌런드 국무부 대변인은 ＂어제(15일) 오후 뉴욕채널을 통해 북한이 위성발사를 강행 할 것같다는 소식을 전해 들었다” 고 말했다. 그로부터 몇 시간 후 북한이 발사 사실을 보도했다는 것이다.

당장 북한의 발사를 막을 수단이 없다는 게 미국의 고민이다. 눌런드 대변인은 “심각하게 우려한다”는 말을 되풀이한 뒤 “평양에서 무슨 일이 일어나고 있는지 모르겠다”고 말했다. 11월 대선을 앞둔 버락 오바마 대통령으로선 이란 핵 문제, 시리아 사태에 이어 북한 변수까지 터지는 상황을 부담스러워하고 있다. 공화당은 벌써부터 오바마를 비판하고 나섰다.

　일단 미국은 2·29 북·미 합의에 따른 대북 영양지원을 중단하겠다는 경고부터 했다. 뉼런드 대변인은 “북한을 신뢰할 수 없고, 북측과 일을 진행하기가 매우 어렵게 될 것”이라며 “로켓 발사 시 식량 지원은 상상하기 어렵다”고 밝혔다.

　일본 정부는 북한의 장거리 미사일이 일본을 향할 경우 요격하는 방안을 검토하고 있다고 일본 언론들이 보도했다. 다나카 나오키(田中直紀) 방위상은 17일 기자들에게 “지난번 사례를 참고하는 등 머리를 짜내 (대응) 준비를 하고 있다”고 말했다. ‘지난번 사례’인 2009년 4월 당시 일본은 북한 미사일이 영토나 영해에 낙하할 경우 요격이 가능하도록 자위대법에 근거한 ‘파괴조치명령’을 발동했다. 이에 따라 항공 자위대는 탄도탄 요격미사일 패트리엇(PAC-3) 가동을 준비했고, 해상자위대는 요격 기능을 갖춘 이지스함 세 척을 동해와 태평양에 출동시켰다. 다나카 방위상의 언급은 이번에도 비슷한 조치가 이뤄질 것임을 시사한 것이다.

러시아 외무부는 16일 홈페이지를 통해 발표한 성명에서 “북한의 위성 발사 계획은 심각한 우려를 자아내는 것”이라며 “북한이 유엔 안보리 결의를 위반해서는 안 된다”고 경고했다.