The Hindu : Front Page : North Korea test fires a series of missiles

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 06, 2006

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North Korea test fires a series of missiles

P.S. Suryanarayana

A long-range missile, with a reach up to the U.S., has indeed failed: Washington

SINGAPORE: North Korea test-fired a series of missiles, including the intercontinental Taepodong-2, around dawn (local time) on Wednesday. The exercise was not entirely successful.

The timing coincided with the Independence Day celebrations in the United States. Washington, which was the first to "detect" the multiple launches, indicated that the long-range missile, with a suspected reach up to the U.S. west coast across the Pacific Ocean, had failed.

Taepodong-1, with a lesser range, was test-fired in 1998, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has so far observed a moratorium on test-flights of long-range ballistic missiles.

Taepodong-2 as well as all the shorter-range missiles, in all seven by the latest count, fell harmlessly into the Sea of Japan.

Japan immediately imposed a limited range of sanctions, such as the suspension of a ferry service that gave the North Korean people a maritime access to the outside world. Tokyo also spoke of a likely embargo on currency transactions.

China's moves, as the DPRK's closest interlocutor, were eagerly awaited across East Asia, even as Japan and the U.S. pressed for an urgent response from the U.N. Security Council.

South Korea, the DPRK's ethnic neighbour, reckoned that Pyongyang's action could pose "a threat to the peace and stability of northeast Asia." At the same time, the official word after an emergency meeting in Seoul was that South Korea would prefer a "cool-headed" approach. South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon and his Chinese counterpart Li Zhaoxing held a crisis conversation. Seoul indicated that Mr. Li called for "negotiation and dialogue."

Stay calm, says China

Later in the night, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao expressed Beijing's serious concern and called upon the international community to stay calm and exercise restraint.

In Tokyo, U.S. Ambassador to Japan Thomas Schieffer said the missile launches were "no way to advance their [DPRK's] foreign policy goals." A North Korean official was earlier quoted as telling a group of visiting Japanese journalists in Pyongyang that the tests were a matter of the DPRK's sovereign rights.

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