- TOKYO (Reuters) - North Korea
kept up its recent threats to resume missile tests Monday, saying it may
end its test moratorium if Tokyo goes ahead with developing a missile defense
shield with the United States.
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- The official Rodong Sinmun criticized recent comments
by the Japanese defense minister suggesting that Tokyo step up its joint
research with Washington on the missile defense system, saying they undermine
efforts to improve the bilateral ties.
-
- "By doing so, he seeks to torpedo the process of
improving the abnormal DPRK (North Korea)-Japan relations and push the
situation to confrontation," the state-run Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA) quoted the paper as saying.
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- "This also prompts the DPRK to take a corresponding
measure as it is a new dangerous move to attack and stifle the DPRK by
force of arms," the paper added, referring to the reconsideration
of the moratorium on missile tests.
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- The latest threat follows a North Korean radio broadcast
on Sunday seeming to confirm that the communist state has nuclear weapons,
but which experts said was probably misinterpreted.
-
- Japanese Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba told the parliament
earlier this month that if studies over the missile shield yielded positive
results, Japan should step up the project to a development stage.
-
- Japan decided to conduct joint research with the United
States on developing a missile defense program following North Korea's
test firing of a missile which flew over Japan in 1998.
-
- But Tokyo has so far stopped short of moving the project
to a development stage due to the huge budget required and questions over
its feasibility.
-
- Neighbors China and Russia are also against the missile
shield, which they see as Washington's way of keeping their military capabilities
in check.
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- Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi had won a pledge
to refrain from test-firing missiles from North Korean leader Kim Jong-il
at a September 17 summit, where Kim also apologized for the abductions
of Japanese citizens decades ago.
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- Tokyo and Pyongyang resumed talks on normalizing ties
late last month, but initial negotiations left the two sides far apart
on the key issues of Pyongyang's nuclear arms program and Tokyo's demand
that the children of five Japanese abductees now visiting Japan be allowed
to join them.
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- Earlier this month, Pyongyang said it would reconsider
the moratorium if talks with Tokyo failed to make progress.
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