“I think the fuel injection will be completed at an appropriate date,”
Paek Chang-ho, head of the satellite control centre of the Korean Committee
of Space Technology, told a group of foreign journalists in the North Korea
capital, Pyongyang.
He would not comment on when the fuel injection would be complete. “And
as for the exact timing of the launch, it will be decided by my superiors”,
Paek said.
South Korea, which remains technically at war with the North after their
1950-53 conflict ended with a truce rather than a peace treaty, warned
Pyongyang it would deepen its isolation if it went ahead with the launch.
Security sources in Seoul, citing satellite images, have said that North
Korea, which walked out of “six-party” disarmament talks three
years ago, is also preparing a third nuclear test following the launch,
something it did in 2009, and a move bound to trigger further condemnation
and isolation.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned that history pointed to “additional
provocations” from North Korea after the launch, apparently a reference
to a nuclear test.
“This launch will give credence to the view that North Korean leaders see
improved relations with the outside world as a threat to their system,”
she told cadets at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
“And recent history strongly suggests that additional provocations may
follow.”
She also called on China to do more to ensure regional stability.
China, impoverished North Korea’s only major ally, on Tuesday reiterated its
pleas for calm and said it had “repeatedly expressed its concern and
anxiety about the developments”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin
told a press briefing in Beijing.
Source: Reuters
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