North Korea upgrading rocket launch site

This April 29, 2012 satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows what appears to be the initial stages of construction of a rocket assembly building at Musudan-ri in northeastern North Korea.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Satellite imagery shows North Korea is upgrading its old launch site in the secretive country's northeast to handle larger rockets, like space launch vehicles and intercontinental missiles, a U.S. institute claimed Tuesday.

The U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies said the upgrade of the Musudan-ri site began last summer and reflects North Korean determination to expand its rocket program.

The U.S. and other nations are worried such rockets could be developed to deliver nuclear weapons.

North Korea on Tuesday vowed to push ahead with its nuclear program because of what it called U.S. hostility. The international community is pressuring North Korea to refrain from conducting what would be its third nuclear test, following a failed attempt in mid-April to launch a satellite into space.

That launch, using its biggest rocket to date, the Unha-3, was from a more sophisticated site at Sohae on the country's northwestern coast.

An April 29 aerial image of Musudan-ri on the opposite coast shows the initial stages of construction of a launch pad and rocket assembly building that could support rockets at least as big as the Unha-3, the institute told The Associated Press. A crane is visible where the launch pad is being built 1.1 miles from the old one. At the current pace of construction, the facilities should be operational by 2016-2017, the institute said.

"This major upgrade program, designed to enable Musudan-ri to launch bigger and better rockets far into the future, represents both a significant resource commitment and an important sign of North Korea's determination," said Joel Wit, editor of the institute's website, 38 North.

The institute says the assembly building shows similarities to one at the Semnan launch complex in Iran, which has a long history of missile cooperation with North Korea. But, officials there say it's premature to conclude the two nations cooperated in designing the new facility.

South Korea's National Intelligence Service said Tuesday it cannot comment on whether it has detected any new activity at the Musudan-ri launch site.

The upgrade could be of particular concern to Japan, as rockets launched from the site in the past have flown east over that country. The flight path from Sohae heads south over the Pacific Ocean in the direction of Southeast Asia, avoiding Japan and South Korea.

The April rocket launch drew U.N. Security Council condemnation, as the launch violated an existing ban. Similar technology is used for ballistic missiles. The North, however, is not believed to have mastered how to wed a nuclear device to a missile.

The top U.S. envoy on North Korea, Glyn Davies, who is meeting this week with counterparts from Japan, South Korea and China, warned Monday that the North conducting an atomic test would unify the world in seeking swift, tough punishment. Both of its previous nuclear tests, in 2006 and 2009, followed rocket launches.

A separate analysis of satellite images of a site that North Korea has used for its nuclear tests suggests it has ramped up work there over the past month. James Hardy, IHS Jane's Asia-Pacific specialist, said in a statement that there has been heightened activity at the northeastern Punggye-ri site, including mining carts, excavation equipment and a large amount of debris taken from inside a tunnel and piled around its entrance. The most recent image was from May 9.

In its statement Tuesday, in which North Korea vowed to push ahead with its nuclear program, it made no direct threat of a nuclear test and said it was open to dialogue. An analyst, Koh Yu-hwan at Seoul's Dongguk University, said the statement, from the North's Foreign Ministry, was a message that "the U.S. should come to the dialogue table (with North Korea) if it wants to stop its nuclear test."

The 2006 and 2009 long-range rocket launches that preceded the North's previous nuclear tests were from Musudan-ri. Citing earlier satellite imagery of the site, the U.S.-Korea Institute said land-clearing for the new facilities there began in the fall, and work has proceeded at a fast pace for eight months.

The latest image, from a commercially operated satellite, shows four concrete footings on one side of the launch pad that appear to be for a gantry that would prop up a rocket at launch. It has bigger dimensions than the gantry at the more sophisticated launch site at Sohae.

On another side of the launch pad there is a deep "flame trench" to capture the blast from a launched rocket. Slightly further away, on either side of the launch pad, are two separate buildings designed to enclose the fuel and oxidizer tanks that would funnel propellant into the rocket.

Satellite imagery also shows that about 70 homes, five larger buildings and many sheds in the nearby village of Taepodong have been razed and foundations laid for a large T-shaped structure that appears intended for assembling rockets. A road is under construction that would lead from this building to the launch site, 1.2 miles away.

The building's dimensions are larger than at the comparable structure at Sohae, and the existing one at Musudan-ri, the institute said.

A State Department spokesperson declined to comment on the institute's findings Tuesday, describing it as an intelligence matter.

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Obama to China: Help rein in North Korea

Barack Obama looks through binoculars to see North Korea

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama urged China on Sunday to use its influence to rein in North Korea instead of "turning a blind eye" to its nuclear defiance, and warned of tighter sanctions if the reclusive state goes ahead with a rocket launch next month.

"North Korea will achieve nothing by threats or provocations," a stern-faced Obama said after a tour of the heavily fortified border between the two Koreas resonant with echoes of the Cold War.

Such a launch would only lead to further isolation of the impoverished North, which much show its sincerity if on-again-off-again six-party aid-for-disarmament talks are to restart, Obama told a news conference in the South Korean capital.

Seoul and Washington say the launch will be a disguised test of a ballistic missile that violates Pyongyang's latest international commitments. North Korea says it merely wants to put a satellite into orbit.

Even as Obama warned North Korea of the consequences of its actions, he spoke bluntly to China, the closest thing Pyongyang has to an ally, of its international obligations.

Obama said Beijing's actions of "rewarding bad behavior (and) turning a blind eye to deliberate provocations" were obviously not working, and he promised to raise the matter at a meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao in Seoul on Monday.

"I believe that China is very sincere that it does not want to see North Korea with a nuclear weapon," he told a news conference in Seoul before a global summit on nuclear security. "But it is going to have to act on that interest in a sustained way."

It was Obama's sharpest message yet to China to use its clout with North Korea in a nuclear standoff with the West, and dovetails with recent calls for Beijing to meet its responsibilities as a rising world power.

In an election year when Republicans have accused Obama of not being strong enough with Beijing, talking tough on China is seen as a potential vote-winner after three years of troubled diplomacy in dealings with Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

China is host to the six-party talks, which involve Japan and Russia as well as the two Koreas and the United States.

DMZ TOUR

U.S. President Barack Obama (R) poses for a photo after his speech

Obama earlier visited a U.S. base on the edge of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) as a solemn North Korea came to a halt to mark the 100th day after "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il's death.

"You guys are at freedom's frontier," Obama, wearing an Air Force One bomber jacket, told about 50 troops crammed into the Camp Bonifas mess hall at one of the world's most heavily fortified frontiers.

He spent about 10 minutes on a camouflaged viewing platform at the DMZ, talking with some of the soldiers on guard and peering with binoculars across the border into North Korea as flags flapped loudly in the brisk, cold wind.

The White House cast Obama's first visit to the DMZ, which has bisected the peninsula since the end of the Korean War in 1953, as a way to showcase the strength of the U.S.-South Korean alliance and thank some of the nearly 30,000 American troops still deployed in South Korea.

The 4-km (2.5-mile) wide DMZ was drawn up at the end of the 1950-53 civil conflict, which ended in a truce that has yet to be finalized with a permanent peace treaty, leaving the two Koreas in effect still at war.

ROCKET LAUNCH CONDEMNED

Washington has condemned next month's planned rocket launch as a violation of North Korea's promise to halt long-range missile firings, nuclear tests and uranium enrichment in return for a resumption of food aid.

Obama said that if the North goes ahead with the rocket launch, a February food aid deal could fall apart and Pyonygang could face a tightening of international sanctions.

Obama said he was sympathetic to China's concerns that too much pressure on North Korea could create a refugee crisis on its borders, but insisted Beijing's approach over the decades had failed to achieve a "fundamental shift" in Pyongyang's behavior.

South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted a military official on Sunday as saying the main body of the rocket had been moved to the launch site on North Korea's west coast. The launch will coincide with big celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of the state's founder, Kim Il-sung.

North Korea's defiance is clouding Obama's much-touted nuclear disarmament agenda, which is also being challenged by Iran's persistence with nuclear research in the face of sanctions and international criticism.

Obama will join more than 50 other world leaders on Monday for a follow-up to the inaugural nuclear security summit he organized in Washington in 2010 to help combat the threat of nuclear terrorism.

While North Korea and Iran are not on the guest list or the official agenda, they are expected to be the main focus of Obama's array of bilateral meetings on the sidelines.

NORTH KOREA MOURNS

Obama's visit coincided with the end of the 100-day mourning period for Kim Jong-il, who died in December. Tens of thousands of people crammed into Kim Il-sung Square in central Pyongyang to mark the occasion.

The state's new young leader, Kim Jong-un, the third member of the Kim family to rule the state, bowed before a portrait of his father at the palace where he lies in state. He was joined by his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, and military chief Ri Yong-ho.

Standing alongside South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Obama told reporters it was difficult to get an accurate impression of how the succession process was going because it was not clear who was "calling the shots" in the North.

The young Kim himself made a surprise trip to the DMZ in early March. He looked across the border through binoculars and told troops to "maintain the maximum alertness since (they) stand in confrontation with the enemy at all times".

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South Korea carries out military drill despite threats from North

A South Korean K-1 tank fires live rounds during a military exercise 

Seoul, South Korea (CNN) -- South Korea fired live artillery on Monday in a military drill near the country's heavily armed border with North Korea, which has described the exercise as a provocation.

The drill Monday involved howitzers, mortars and attack helicopters, South Korean news agency Yonhap reported. It took place on islands off the west coast of the Korean peninsula where tensions have flared in the past.

Seoul notified the North on Sunday of the drill, a regular live-fire exercise that lasts an hour. About 1,000 island residents were moved to safe areas during the drill, Yonhap reported, citing military officials.

"This is a very dangerous play with fire to ignite a war against the North as it is a clear declaration of war against it," Pyongyang's state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Sunday, citing a bulletin from the Secretariat of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea.

In late 2010, North Korea responded to a South Korean military exercise in the same area by firing artillery at Yeonpyeong Island, killing two South Korean marines and two civilians.

"If the puppet warmongers preempt reckless firing despite our warning, they will not escape punishment thousands-fold severer" than the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island, the bulletin said. It identified "the puppet warmongers" as being South Korea and the United States, which has tens of thousands of troops in South Korea.

The death in December of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il and the subsequent anointment of his son and chosen successor, Kim Jong Un, has created uncertainty about the future direction of the secretive regime in Pyongyang.

Further tensions over military maneuvers on the Korean peninsula are expected in the coming weeks. There are two joint exercises planned involving thousands of U.S. and South Korean forces scheduled between February and April.

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