Japan aide fires back at N. Korea
The official said it could down a rocket fired its way. Skeptics called that bluster.
SEOUL, South Korea - An angry Japan hinted yesterday that it could down any incoming North Korean rocket, though analysts dismissed the talk as bluster and said the communist country would go ahead with a planned April launch with little fear of the consequences.
The North announced this week that it would send a satellite into orbit between April 4-8. It said the satellite would fly over Japanese territory and designated a "danger" zone off Japan warning international shipping and aviation to avoid the area.
The rocket's first stage is expected to fall in waters less than 75 miles from Japan's northwestern shore, according to coordinates Pyongyang provided to U.N. agencies. The zone where the second stage should fall lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean between Japan and Hawaii.
The United States and other governments have warned that any rocket launch - whether missile test or satellite - would violate a 2006 U.N. Security Council resolution banning North Korea from ballistic-missile activity.
"We protest a launch, and strongly demand it be canceled," Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso said.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Takeo Kawamura said Japan reserved the right to take out the rocket if it looked as if it could hit.
"Legally speaking, if this object falls toward Japan, we can shoot it down for safety reasons," he said.
Japan, which was shaken in 1998 when a North Korean missile flew over its territory and landed in the Pacific, has since moved to develop missile-defense capabilities with some success. It downed a ballistic missile from a ship at sea in a 2007 test.
Lance Gatling, an independent defense analyst, said the country was capable of intercepting a medium-range missile. North Korea, though, is expected to fire a long-range rocket next month.
Masao Okonogi, an international relations professor at Tokyo's Keio University, said Japanese officials felt they had little choice but to engage in strong rhetoric.
"Government officials are talking tough because they don't want to be seen as passive in the face of a North Korean launch," Okonogi said.
Others said North Korea was likely to stick with its plan despite intense international criticism. They said Pyongyang had little to fear and much to gain by following through with what is seen as an attempt to bolster its standing in nuclear negotiations with the United States.
"After the launch, there will be a little bit of noise, but that will pass and things will move on to the next stage," said Kim Tae Woo of the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses in Seoul. "I believe the U.S. will offer dialogue."
Ultimately, a successful satellite launch would provide North Korea with the upper hand in its future negotiations with Washington as it would mean the country could show it has a delivery vehicle for its nuclear weapons, according to Paik Hak Soon, a North Korea expert at the private Sejong Institute near Seoul.
"Then," he said, "the North will have not only a nuclear card but a missile card."