North Korea test-fires missiles into sea

Issues warning it may halt plant disabling

TOKYO - North Korea test-fired a volley of missiles into the sea yesterday and warned that it might stop disabling its nuclear facilities unless the United States drops its demands for more details about the North's nuclear arsenal.

The missile launch and the combative warning - which accused the Bush administration of "persistently trying to cook up fictions" - occurred one day after the North expelled 11 South Korean officials from an industrial park north of the border that separates the two Koreas.

The White House called the missile tests "not constructive" and said North Korea should "refrain from testing missiles," Reuters news service reported. But South Korea played down the missile firings, characterizing them as part of a routine military exercise. "We believe the North does not want a deterioration of relations between South and North," a government spokesman said.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it believed the short-range missile firings were aimed at testing and improving the missile's performance. It did not give specifics, including how many missiles were fired. It also was unclear where the tests took place, but North Korea declared a no-sailing zone off the coastal city of Nampo.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said it believed the short-range missile firings were aimed at testing and improving the missile's performance. It did not give specifics, including how many missiles were fired. It also was unclear where the tests took place, but North Korea declared a no-sailing zone off the coastal city of Nampo.

The truculent actions taken by North Korea in the past two days suggest that leader Kim Jong Il, after a relatively placid stretch of cooperative diplomacy, is increasingly peeved by demands from the United States and South Korea.

The Bush administration is refusing to lift diplomatic sanctions against the North until it explains its suspected uranium enrichment program and details any efforts to sell nuclear technology to Syria or other countries.

"North Korea should focus on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula and deliver a complete and correct declaration of all its nuclear weapons programs and nuclear proliferation activities," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said after the tests were reported.

North Korea reiterated yesterday that it has "never enriched uranium nor rendered cooperation to any other country."

South Korea's new president, Lee Myung-bak, who was sworn in last month, is taking a much tougher line than his predecessors in dealing with the North. Lee's government has said it will condition food aid and economic assistance on human rights and on timely dismantlement of the North's nuclear program.

This week's flare-up in tension on the Korean peninsula comes at an unusually stressful time for Kim's government. It is facing dire food shortages due to weather-related crop failures, the soaring world price of food, and declines in aid from South Korea, China, and the UN World Food Program. The shortages are expected to reach their peak late this summer - at a time when China, the North's closest ally and primary benefactor, will be hosting the Olympics.

Analysts say that China expects Kim's government not to allow disturbances inside North Korea that could, during the games, send hungry refugees spilling across the border into China.

For reasons that have not been explained publicly, China has been supplying less food assistance in the past three years to North Korea, according to figures compiled by the World Food Program.

At the same time, China has placed tariffs on food exports. Combined with much higher grain prices on world markets, the 22 percent Chinese tariff has substantially reduced the impoverished North's capacity to buy food from there.

Perhaps more important, South Korea has delayed the delivery of the free fertilizer that the North has come to rely on. The World Food Program has warned that the North this summer will have about 25 percent less food than it needs to feed the country's 23 million people.

Most of the severely affected people are in rural northern areas of the country, but a South Korean aid group said this month that food shortages are also affecting the country's elite in the capital.

With the near-collapse of the state-controlled economy in the North and a sharp increase in corruption among local police, analysts say widespread discontent over food shortages - especially if it spreads among the urban elite - has the potential to destabilize Kim's government.

There have also been reports that North Korean military and industrial officials are unhappy with his government for granting access to US diplomats to visit a missile factory. A statement from the North Korean Foreign Ministry warned that the United States is endangering an agreement brokered last year by six nations.