SEOUL, April 29 (Yonhap) -- North Korea is still working on preparations for a medium-range ballistic missile launch, South Korea's presidential office said Monday, denying a news report that the communist nation halted such preparations.

   For weeks, North Korea showed signs of preparing to fire the missile, known as "Musudan," which is believed to be capable of reaching as far as the U.S territory of Guam, in what outside experts suspect as an attempt at demonstrating its capability to launch nuclear missiles.

   Pyongyang had widely been expected to fire the missile around the April 15 birthday of Kim Il-sung, the country's late founding leader and grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un. But no such firing happened, raising speculation that the country might have decided against a launch.

   Japan's Asahi Shimbun reported earlier Monday that North Korea suspended preparations for a launch and the U.S. military lowered its surveillance level by a notch. The paper cited unidentified South Korea, U.S. and Japanese officials as saying that no radio signal related to launch preparations has been detected since around April 20.

   But South Korea's presidential office Cheong Wa Dae denied the report.

   "Our assessment is that preparations for a Musudan missile launch are still going on," presidential spokesman Yoon Chang-jung told reporters. "We decided to immediately deny the report because this is a matter related to our national security."

   Yoon also said that the absence of such a radio signal does not necessarily mean that preparations for a launch have been halted.

   jschang@yna.co.kr
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