hankyoreh

South Hwanghae Province

WASHINGTON, DC -- North Korea said yesterday that it has notified international shipping and aviation agencies of its plan to launch an “experimental communications satellite.”

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency said yesterday that Pyongyang had delivered the “necessary information for the safe navigation of planes and ships” to the International Civil Aviation Organization, the International Maritime Organization and other global agencies, “according to relevant regulations as part of its preparations for the launching of the Kwangmyongsong-2, an experimental communications satellite, by carrier rocket Unha-2.”

The KCNA did not report on whether the North had notified the international organizations of the launch date, but a South Korean government official said that “North Korea informed them it will launch it into the East Sea between April 4 and 8.”

Moon Tae-young, the spokesman for the South’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, said the ministry was in the process of determining whether North Korea had set a launch date, but that nothing had yet been confirmed.

The launch date is likely to coincide with the inauguration of the third term of North Korean National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong-il, who is set to be re-elected when the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly votes on the matter early next month. Additional speculation about the launch is that the North is using it to increase its leverage in negotiations with the United States, boost its knowledge of scientific and technological advances with military applications and enhance its national unity.

South Korea, the United States, Japan and other nations have given the North repeated warnings against a launch of any kind, saying that even the launch of a satellite would be in violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1718. Whether sanctions will be imposed on the North is still a question.

In a press conference on March 11 (Washington time), following talks with China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said, “We believe that the missile launch, for whatever purpose it is stated to be aimed at, is in violation of the Security Council resolution.” She also said that “there are a range of options available to take action against the North Koreans in the wake of the missile launch, if they pursue that,” adding that “We need to have a conversation about missiles, and it’s not in the six-party talks. We would like to see it be part of the discussion with North Korea. But most importantly, we would like to see North Korea evidence in some way their willingness to re-engage with all of us and to work together on the agenda that they agreed to in the six-party talks. And that’s what we’re working for.”

In a meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon at the White House on March 10 (local time), U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States will continue efforts for opening North Korea through dialogue, according to a senior official at the United Nations who attended at the meeting.

The remarks by Obama and Clinton were interpreted to mean that they intend to continue to engage in dialogue and negotiations with North Korea, while working multilaterally to deal with the possible “satellite” launch.

Meanwhile, Moon, the South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman, said North Korea submitted the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, which prohibits countries from placing weapons of mass destruction in space and limits the use of space to peaceful purposes, and the Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space, which requires states to provide the United Nations with information about objects launched into space, to the Russian foreign ministry on March 6 and to the UN on March 10.

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