North Korea rattles its missiles

North Korean state news agency KCNA reported on Thursday that the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea was holding a meeting among central and army committee members where they discussed how to “further strengthen” the party ahead of a rare political meeting scheduled for May.

Wu held talks with North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Su-yong, Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Kye-gwan and his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong-ho during the trip, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters.

Pyongyang has announced it will launch a satellite-bearing rocket sometime between February 8-25, which is around the time of the birthday on February 16 of late leader Kim Jong-Il, father of current leader Kim Jong-Un.

China has meanwhile sent a special nuclear envoy to Pyongyang.

The US-based North Korean analysis website 38 North said recent satellite images show recent activity at Sohae suggesting launch preparations. “Whether the USA recognizes it or not, we are a nuclear state”.

Meanwhile, the government plans to cooperate with other relevant countries to call on North Korea to refrain from launching the missile.

South Korean President Park Geun-hye yesterday called for strong United Nations sanctions that would make North Korea realize it could not survive if it did not abandon its weapons programs. China has already expressed its concern, urging the country Wednesday to exercise restraint.

Chang wondered if the North Koreans and Iranians could be so proud of successfully testing such a missile that they dropped all pretense of a “satellite launch”, and whether “a bold statement of that sort might even get the no-pulse John Kerry to do something about North Korea’s troublesome weapons programs”.

Jin said China would like to try additional steps before tough sanctions are imposed, mainly using inducements to persuade the North to return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks hosted by Beijing that have been stalled since 2009. Although Beijing has supported those measures, it points to North Korea’s continuing nuclear tests and missile launches as proof of their ineffectiveness.

The missile test poses potentially a greater threat to the Philippines than Japan as the second stage of the three-stage rocked is projected to land in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Luzon island.

Japan’s defense minister said Wednesday he issued a missile-shoot-down order and deployed Aegis destroyers and PAC-3 missile defense units to around Tokyo and Okinawa in case debris fall on the Japanese territory.

Moon also revealed that the South is working with the United States to monitor any launch that takes place north of the border – around 30,000 American military personnel are stationed on the peninsula as a legacy of the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in a truce rather than a peace treaty.