SEOUL, South Korea — One day after its nuclear test drew angry and widespread condemnation, North Korea further antagonized the international community on Tuesday by test-firing three short-range missiles.
In addition, a South Korean newspaper reported on Wednesday that American spy satellites had detected plumes of steam and other signs of activity at a North Korean plant that reprocesses spent nuclear fuel to make weapons-grade plutonium. The report from the newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, appeared to support a claim by North Korea in late April that it had restarted its reprocessing plant at Yongbyon, 60 miles north of Pyongyang, the capital.
The missile firings came just hours after South Korea said it would join an American-led operation to stop the global trafficking in unconventional weapons, an action the North had said it would consider a declaration of war.
The developments sharpened the confrontation between North Korea and much of the world — especially the United States — as the United Nations Security Council vowed to fashion a resolution that could impose further sanctions on the increasingly belligerent North.
The missiles launched Tuesday were surface-to-ship and surface-to-air projectiles, a South Korean official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. The South Korean news agency Yonhap said the missiles had a range of 80 miles. They were apparently launched from a base on the eastern coast into the sea opposite Japan, further rattling nerves in the region.
There was no official comment on the missile firings by either the North Korean authorities or the South Korean Defense Ministry.
After its nuclear test on Monday, its second in less than three years, the North test-fired three short-range missiles, also off its east coast. An intelligence official in Seoul said that move indicated that North Korea was “getting its back up” about the possibility that United States military aircraft would fly near North Korea in an effort to collect radiation data from the nuclear blast.
At the Pentagon, officials said the military on Tuesday sent a specially designed surveillance plane into international airspace around North Korea to collect particles from the test. The airplane has high-technology “sniffers” on board to collect radioactive materials that might have seeped up from the underground test.
The particles from the first surveillance flight were to be sent to laboratories in the United States, and a second flight was planned over the next day or two, officials said.
South Korea’s long-delayed participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative, a program to curb trafficking in unconventional weapons, followed a statement on Monday by the Security Council that unanimously condemned the nuclear test and called it a “clear violation” of a previous resolution.
At the United Nations, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Japan and South Korea met for 90 minutes on Tuesday to discuss possible new sanctions, as well as ways to strengthen provisions in a 2006 resolution that have never been put into effect, like halting and inspecting North Korean vessels at sea.
Ambassadors were tight-lipped about potential new sanctions, and diplomats said no written proposals had begun to circulate. All seven nations were said to have agreed on the need to send a strong message to North Korea. “We are in agreement on the goals,” said Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador. But the Chinese ambassador, Zhang Yesui, deflected questions about how strong a resolution his country would support.
In Japan, the lower house of Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution on Tuesday condemning the North’s nuclear test, and it threatened to step up sanctions against the North.
“Japan, as the world’s only nation to ever suffer a nuclear attack, cannot condone” North Korea’s repeated nuclear tests, the resolution said. North Korea’s recent belligerence has also prompted Japan’s governing party to debate whether Tokyo should consider pre-emptive strikes against states considered hostile — actions that would probably require changes to Japan’s pacifist Constitution.
North Korea appeared unfazed by the world’s condemnation, which included strong rebukes from allies like China and Russia. On Tuesday in Rodong Sinmun, the North’s main Communist Party newspaper, North Korea declared that it was “fully ready for battle” against the United States, accusing President Obama of “following in the footsteps of the previous Bush administration’s reckless policy of militarily stifling North Korea.”
North Korean officials have said that South Korea’s full membership in the initiative would be seen as a “declaration of undisguised confrontation and a declaration of a war.” The international effort was begun in 2003 by the Bush administration in order to interdict shipments — especially at sea — that were suspected of containing unconventional weapons, their related materials and delivery systems.
Russia, Britain, France and Israel are among the 95 signers of the initiative, which India, Pakistan and China did not sign.
South Korea had wavered on joining the initiative for fear of provoking the North. But on Tuesday, President Lee Myung-bak, who came to power with a promise to take a tougher approach toward the North, spoke with Mr. Obama about the North Korean threat and the South’s decision to join the effort.
On the phone, Mr. Lee emphasized to Mr. Obama that the United States and its allies “should not repeat the pattern” of “rewarding” North Korea’s provocations with dialogue and economic aid, as they did after the North’s first nuclear test in October 2006.
Reporting was contributed by Mark McDonald from Hong Kong, Hiroko Tabuchi from Tokyo, Thom Shanker from Washington, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.
Lifted from: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/27/world/asia/27korea.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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