TOKYO -
Japan has deployed missile batteries in
central Tokyo and dispatched destroyers as North Korea makes final preparations
for a rocket launch that could take place this week despite global
condemnation.
The
communist North says it will launch a satellite for peaceful scientific
research between April 12 and 16 to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of
founding leader Kim Il-Sung.
But the
United States and its allies say it is a disguised missile test and that the
launch would contravene United Nations sanctions aimed at curbing North Korea's
missile programme.
A
successful satellite launch would burnish the image of young Kim Jong-Un as he
seeks to establish his credentials as a strong leader after taking over from
his father and longtime ruler, Kim Jong-Il, who died last December.
Japanese
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda has given the green light to shoot down the
rocket if it threatens Japan's territory.
Patriot
missiles were Saturday deployed at the defence ministry in downtown Tokyo and
at two other bases in the region to protect the greater Tokyo area and its
population of around 35 million.
The
ministry also dispatched three Aegis destroyers carrying interceptor missiles,
reportedly to the East China Sea, where it has already deployed Patriot
missiles on the southern island chain of Okinawa, beneath the rocket's forecast
flight path.
"We
have taken the best possible measures that we can think of at this point,"
senior vice defence minister Shu Watanabe told national broadcaster NHK Sunday.
China,
North Korea's main ally, called for restraint.
"China
is concerned and worried about the latest development on the Korean
peninsula," Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said Saturday, according
to the official Xinhua news agency.
Yang
was Sunday holding a meeting on regional security with his Japanese and South
Korean counterparts.
Pyongyang's
progress on the launch is unclear, though it may have moved the first stage of
a long-range rocket on to its launch pad, one report said.
The 38
North website, a US specialist site, said an April 4 photo of the launch site
at Tongchang-ri in the country's northwest indicated the first stage of the
Unha-3 rocket, while not visible, may be placed in the gantry.
Pyongyang
has invited foreign experts and reporters to observe the launch, which it
insists is part of peaceful space research.
It has
not given an exact date, but Kim Il-Sung's birthday was on April 15.
The
secretive and impoverished state announced the rocket plans despite agreeing on
February 29 to freeze its nuclear and missile programmes as part of a deal
under which the United States would deliver badly needed food aid.
North
Korean expert Masao Okonogi said Japan's missile deployment was necessary to
calm the Japanese public.
"The
step that Japan has taken was aimed at giving psychological assurance to the
public that the government has gone so far to deal with North Korea,"
Okonogi, a professor at Kyushu University, told AFP.
He
warned, however, that North Korea could carry out another nuclear test.
"As
one possibility, North Korea could conduct a nuclear test in a protest against
condemnation from various countries following the missile experiment,"
Okonogi said.
North
Korea tested nuclear bombs shortly after its previous missile launches in 2006
and 2009.
Senior
vice defence minister Watanabe told Japanese reporters there was no sign
Pyongyang was preparing to test an atomic weapon.
However
a South Korean report, citing a Seoul intelligence official, contradicted that.
"Recent
satellite images led us to conclude the North has been digging a new
underground tunnel in the nuclear test site... besides two others where the
previous tests were conducted," Yonhap news agency quoted the source as
saying.
In
2009, Japan also ordered missile defence preparations before Pyongyang's last
long-range rocket launch, which brought UN Security Council condemnation and
tightened sanctions against the isolated state.
That
rocket, which North Korea also said was aimed at putting a satellite into
orbit, passed over Japanese territory without incident or any attempt to shoot
it down.
AFP
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