Text Fwd: N. Korea to 'closely watch' how regional powers treat S. Korean rocket launch

Yonhap News
N. Korea to 'closely watch' how regional powers treat S. Korean rocket launch
By Kim Hyun

SEOUL, Aug. 10 (Yonhap) -- North Korea warned Monday that it will "closely watch" how regional countries react to South Korea's imminent launch of a space rocket, claiming it has been unfairly punished for its own.

North Korea's long-range rocket test in April prompted the United States and other regional powers to turn to the U.N. Security Council, which then unanimously adopted a resolution of sanctions against Pyongyang.

"We will closely watch if the above-said parties will also refer South Korea's satellite launch to the UNSC," an unidentified spokesman for the North's foreign ministry said in a report carried by the Korean Central News Agency.

"Their reaction and attitude towards South Korea's satellite launch will once again clearly prove whether the principle of equality exists or has collapsed," he said.

The statement follows a rare upbeat signal in Pyongyang's frayed relations with Washington. U.S. former President Bill Clinton traveled to Pyongyang and met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-il last week, who then pardoned two U.S. journalists after months of detention on charges of illegal entry.

South Korea plans to launch its first space rocket, the Korea Space Launch Vehicle-1 (KSLV-1), within the month after it was twice delayed due to technical glitches.

North Korea launched a long-range rocket carrying a satellite in April, which was condemned by regional countries as a disguised test for its missile technology. While Pyongyang claimed the satellite successfully entered orbit, outside monitors found no such object in space.

Following the punitive U.N. resolution, North Korea withdrew from the six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear weapons program and began reprocessing its spent fuel rods used for making nuclear bombs. Pyongyang claimed the talks lost their merit, as the U.N. punishment breached its spirit of equality. The dialogue also involves South Korea, the U.S., China, Japan and Russia.

In May, Pyongyang conducted a nuclear test, prompting the U.N. council to intensify existing sanctions with a new resolution.

Cho Myung-chul, a former economics professor at Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung university who defected to the South in 1994, said North Korea's renewed justification of its rocket launch is aimed at pressuring the U.S. to withdraw the punitive sanctions.

"It is saying, Japan has launched rockets and South Korea is about to do so, and why not us?'" Cho, now an analyst with the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy in Seoul, said.

"It's the language used to emphasize that the sanctions should be eased and relations improved, and otherwise it is free to conduct more launches."