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(LEAD) N. Korea will retaliate against any attempt to intercept rocket: military
SEOUL, April 2 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's military warned Thursday it will attack "major targets" in Japan should Tokyo shoot down a satellite it plans to orbit as early as this weekend.
The warning comes as leaders of South Korea, the United States and Japan are meeting at the G-20 summit in London, with North Korea's rocket launch high on the agenda of their bilateral talks. The three have threatened to bring Pyongyang to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions if it goes ahead with the launch announced as scheduled between Saturday and Wednesday.
Government sources in Seoul said on Thursday that North Korea has sent a fleet of fighter jets to the east coast near Musudan-ri, the launch site in North Hamgyong Province.
"It is the Japanese reactionaries, the sworn enemy of the Korean people, who are perpetrating the most evil doings over the DPRK (North Korea)'s projected satellite launch for peaceful purposes," the North's military said in what it called "an important report," carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
"If Japan recklessly 'intercepts' the DPRK's satellite for peaceful purposes, the KPA (Korean People's Army) will mercilessly deal deadly blows not only at the already deployed intercepting means but at major targets," it said.
Warships capable of tracking and intercepting the North Korean rocket have been deployed to waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Washington and Tokyo had earlier hinted at a possible interception, but they now say they won't do so unless the rocket threatens their territory.
North Korea has repeatedly warned of retaliation, saying it may quit the six-party nuclear talks if its satellite launch is referred to the U.N. Security Council. Pyongyang also warned it would view as a "declaration of war" South Korea's participation in the U.S.-led Proliferation Security Initiative, a multilateral effort to interdict shipments and the transfer of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction by countries like North Korea.
"It is a legitimate right of a sovereign state in which no one can interfere to use space for peaceful purposes," the North's military said.
It also claimed that North Korea sent cable notices on March 21 banning access to its airspace that will be affected by the launch to civil aviation authorities in the U.S., Japan, Russia, China, Switzerland and South Korea.
"However, only Japan is making much ado as if something serious had happened, finding fault with even the DPRK's above-said advance notice and terming the launch of 'Kwangmyongsong-2,' the DPRK's experimental communications satellite for peaceful purposes, a 'hostile act,'" it said.
The statement also urged the U.S. to "immediately withdraw its already deployed armed forces" and South Korea to stop "disturbing the said launch."
lcd@yna.co.kr
hkim@yna.co.kr
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