Japan put its military on alert on Wednesday to shoot down any North Korean rocket that threatens it, while South Korea warned the North it would pay a “severe price” if it goes ahead with a satellite launch that South Korea considers a missile test.
North notified U.N. agencies on Tuesday of its plan to launch what it called an “earth observation satellite” some time between Feb. 8 and 25.
North Korea has said it has a sovereign right to pursue a space program by launching rockets, although the United States and other governments suspect that such launches are in reality tests of its missiles.
“We have defenses ready to deal with all threats, but in view of the announcement I have put the Self Defense Force’s Aegis destroyers and our PAC-3 units on alert and issued an order to shoot down any ballistic missile threat,” Japan’s defense minister, Gen Nakatani, told media briefing.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he would work with the United States and others to “strongly demand” that North Korea refrain from what he described as a planned missile launch.
Tension rose in East Asia last month after North Korea’s fourth nuclear test, this time of what it said was a hydrogen bomb.
A rocket launch coming so soon after the nuclear test would raise concern that North Korea plans to fit nuclear warheads on its missiles, giving it the capability to launch a strike against South Korea, Japan and possibly targets as far away as the U.S. West Coast.
North Korea last launched a long-range rocket in December 2012, sending an object it described as a communications satellite into orbit.
South Korea said the North should immediately call off the launch, which is a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the South’s presidential Blue House said in a statement.
