North Korea may delay launch
North Korea may postpone the controversial launch of a long-range rocket that had been slated for liftoff as early as this week, state media said Sunday, as international pressure on Pyongyang to cancel the provocative move intensified.
Scientists have been pushing forward with final preparations for the launch from a west coast site, slated to take place as early as Monday, but are considering “readjusting” the timing, an unidentified spokesman for the Korean Committee for Space Technology told North Korea’s staterun Korean Central News Agency.
It was unclear whether diplomatic intervention or technical glitches were behind the delay. A brief KCNA dispatch said scientists and technicians were discussing whether to set new launch dates but did not elaborate.
Word of a possible delay comes just days after satellite photos indicated that snow may have slowed launch preparations, and as officials in Washington, Seoul, Tokyo, Moscow and elsewhere urged North Korea to cancel a liftoff widely seen as a violation of bans against missile activity.
Commercial satellite imagery taken by GeoEye on Dec. 4 and shared Friday with The Associated Press by the 38 North and North Korea Tech websites showed the site northwest of Pyongyang covered with snow. The road from the main assembly building to the launch pad showed no fresh tracks, indicating snowfall may have stalled the preparations.
However, analysts believed rocket preparations would have been completed on time for liftoff as early as Monday.
North Korea announced earlier this month that it would launch a three-stage rocket mounted with a satellite from its Sohae station southeast of Sinuiju sometime between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22. Pyongyang calls it a peaceful bid to send an observa- tional satellite into space, its second attempt this year.
The launch announcement captured global headlines because of its timing: South Korea and Japan hold key elections this month, President Barack Obama begins his second term next month and China has just formed a new leadership. North Koreans also have begun a mourning period for late leader Kim Jong-il, who died on Dec. 17, 2011.
Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington was “deeply concerned” about the launch, and urged foreign ministers from NATO and Russia to demand Pyongyang cancel its plans.
U.S. and others said the launch would violate UN Security Council resolutions banning North Korea from nuclear and missile activity because the rocket shares the same technology used for firing a longrange missile.
Analyst Baek Seung-joo of the South Korean state-run Korea Institute for Defence Analyses in Seoul said China must have sent a “very strong” message calling for the North to cancel the launch plans.
“North Korea won’t say it would delay the launch due to foreign pressure so that’s why they say scientists and technicians are considering delaying it,” he said.