US official says activity detected at NKorean launch site

North Korea is preparing to launch a long-range ballistic missile, possibly within a week, the Japanese government believes.

North Korea may be preparing to launch a long-range missile as soon as within a week, Japan’s Kyodo news agency reported early on Thursday, citing an unnamed Japanese government official.

Kim Min-seok, a spokesman for the South Korean Defense Ministry, declined to comment on possible pre-launch activities by North Korea, Reuters reported. Pyongyang has traditionally paired a rocket test and a nuclear blast fairly closely together; it launched its last rocket in December 2012 and carried out a nuclear test the following February.

The North has said it is pursuing technology to reach the continental USA and that it is working on a miniaturized nuclear bomb that it could fit into a missile warhead. It is pretty clear that such missiles will be capable of hitting not only South Korea, but also Japan and U.S. bases in the Pacific.

A U.S. official quoted by CNN said the latest assessment, following further seismic analysis, suggested the test, while not of a full-fledged thermonuclear device, may have incorporated H-bomb “components” such as a detonator.

Earlier this month, North Korea caused worldwide consternation with by conducting its fourth nuclear test, putting Washington-Beijing relations to the test as the U.S. called on China to reign in its small neighbor.

Kerry met with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing on Wednesday and said they had agreed to mount an “accelerated effort” to resolve their differences over a new United Nations resolution condemning the test. However, Kim said North Korea had not issued any global warnings, as hit has done ahead of previous rocket launches.

“This idea of North Korea, which is not going to collapse in popular democratic revolution, which is not going to surrender nukes, and which is not starving, this idea, well, does not sell well in the United States of America”, said Andrei Lankov, a professor of Korean Studies at Kookmin University in Seoul. North Korea does this periodically, they move things back and forth…

Overhead satellite imagery in recent days has shown the movement of personnel, rocket-related equipment and fuel into the facility in the north of the country, according to a US official. Spokesperson Kim, however, dismissed a USA news report that claimed Seoul and Washington could announce results of a THAAD system deployment meeting next week.

Although the patience of both has been tested to its limits by North Korea’s nuclear weapons ambitions, neither wants to see the chaotic collapse of a nuclear-armed state on its border. He did say, however, that Japan would work with partners and keep pressure on North Korea to abide by the multilateral, six-party talks that aim to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.

North Korea’s 2013 test triggered sanctions from the UN Security Council, which immediately put restrictions on the country’s banking, trade, and travel.