Security Council meets on North Korea missile test

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council met in
closed session on Wednesday to consider a response to a barrage
of North Korean missile tests.

John Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
said going into the meeting that the 15-nation U.N. body would
have before it a resolution drafted by Japan.

“This is obviously a very serious matter because of the
North Korean provocation,” he told reporters.

North Korea test-fired a barrage of missiles on Wednesday,
including a long-range weapon said to be capable of reaching
Alaska, ratcheting up tensions in north Asia and drawing
international condemnation.

At least six missiles were launched early in the morning
and a seventh some 12 hours later, officials in Japan and South
Korea said. Russia said North Korea fired 10 missiles, but the
report from a senior general could not be immediately
confirmed.

The long-range Taepodong-2 missile apparently failed 40
seconds into its flight, U.S. officials said. Japanese and
South Korean officials said the missiles fell into the sea
separating the Korean peninsula from Japan.

Japan, the United States and Britain readied a Security
Council resolution demanding that nations withhold all funds,
goods and technology that could be used for North Korea’s
missile program.

The draft, read to Reuters and subject to changes, also
condemned the launch and strongly urged North Korea to return
to the six-nation talks on its nuclear program. No vote was
expected on Wednesday.

The United States warned North Korea against any more
provocative acts, and said Washington would take necessary
measures to protect itself and its allies.

“The United States strongly condemns these missile launches
and North Korea’s unwillingness to heed calls for restraint
from the international community,” White House spokesman Tony
Snow said in a statement.

China, North Korea’s closest ally and the host of six-way
talks on its nuclear program, expressed worry.

“We are seriously concerned about the events that have
occurred,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said in a
statement.

“We hope that all sides will maintain calm and restraint,
and do things conducive to the peace and stability of the
Korean peninsula and Northeast Asia and do not take any further
steps that will add to tensions and further complicate the
situation.”

South Korea’s military stepped up its alert level after the
launch, Yonhap news agency cited a military source as saying.

The two Koreas are technically still at war more than half
a century after the inconclusive truce which halted the
1950-1953 Korean conflict. Some 30,000 U.S. troops remain in
South Korea under a mutual defense treaty.

INTIMIDATION

The missile launches “demonstrate North Korea’s intent to
intimidate other states by developing missiles of increasingly
longer ranges,” Snow, the White House official, added.

“We are consulting with international partners on next
steps.”

The European Union condemned North Korea’s missile launches
as “provocative,” while NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop
Scheffer said they were a “serious threat” which the Western
military alliance could discuss with regional powers including
Japan, South Korea and Australia.

U.S. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said the
multiple firings might have been an attempt by Pyongyang to
steal the spotlight away from Iran, which has been the main
focus of U.S. nuclear diplomacy in recent months.

“Obviously, it is a bit of an effort to get attention,
perhaps because so much attention has been focused on the
Iranians,” Hadley told reporters.

But like many U.S. officials, he said it was impossible to
be sure about Pyongyang’s motives.

North Korea, whose government pays close attention to
symbolic gestures, chose to launch the missiles as the United
States was marking its July 4 Independence Day.

“It got everybody’s attention on the Fourth of July. (North
Korean leader) Kim Jong-Il can set off fireworks, too,” said
John Pike, director of the security Web site
GlobalSecurity.org.

Japan said it would consider immediate economic sanctions
against North Korea. The government banned visits by North
Korean ferries for six months.

“Whatever North Korea seeks to achieve or is speculating,
nothing positive for North Korea will come out from this,”
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi said.

U.S. stocks opened lower on the launch news, following
losses in Asia and Europe. The Japanese yen and the South
Korean won both slipped against the dollar. In Seoul, the
government said South Korean authorities would take action if
necessary.

Russia, which is a party to six-way talks on North Korea’s
nuclear program, condemned the launch. Tokyo also called on
Pyongyang to return to the six-party talks, which have been
stalled since November.

The other participants in the talks are the United States,
China, Japan and the two Koreas.

LONG-RANGE MISSILE

North Korean media made no mention of the multiple
launches, Japanese reporters in Pyongyang said. Television
channels had no programming on Wednesday morning, they said,
and state radio led its bulletins on Kim Jong Il’s visit to a
tire factory.

Experts say the Taepodong-2 has a possible range of
3,500-4,300 km (2,190-2,690 miles).

A State Department official told Reuters the long-range
missile had failed 40 seconds after it was launched. A senior
South Korean security official said the Taepodong-2 had
splashed down in the sea off the peninsula’s east coast.

Experts say that Pyongyang is developing long-range
missiles to have the capability one day to deliver a nuclear
bomb, but that it is years away from acquiring such a weapons
system.

(Additional reporting by Jim Wolf, Paul Eckert, Matt
Spetalnick in Washington and Jack Kim and Jon Herskovitz in
Seoul)