Report says N. Korea tested missile engine

New launch site is identified

TOKYO - North Korea has tested the engine mechanism for a long-range intercontinental missile that might be able to hit major cities on the West Coast of the United States, according to accounts published yesterday in the South Korean press.

A previously unknown missile launch site on the west coast of North Korea was identified last week by Jane's Defense Weekly, which cited commercial satellite images. The facility has a mobile launch pad and a 10-story tower that would support the North's largest ballistic missiles, Jane's reported.

Appearing before a parliamentary committee in Seoul on Thursday, South Korean Defense Minister Lee Sang-hee said the launch site is about 80 percent complete. His remarks added to the growing body of information about the site that has come in recent media reports from Jane's, the South Korean news agency Yonhap, and the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo.

If accurate, these reports indicate that while North Korea has pursued on-again, off-again negotiations with the United States and five other countries over abandoning its nuclear weapons program, it has continued to work on a long-range ballistic missile development - and is diverting scarce government resources from a collapsing economy that is chronically short of food.

A 2006 UN Security Council resolution demands that North Korea "suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile program." The North must abandon its program in a "complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner," the resolution says.

Chosun Ilbo reported that a US reconnaissance satellite earlier this year detected a test at the launch site of a long-range missile - presumably an updated version of the Taepodong-2 missile, which failed in a 2006 test firing. Chosun Ilbo, the largest-circulation newspaper in South Korea, is considered reliable and was the first newspaper to report last week that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had collapsed in August.

The newspaper's source for the missile test story was an unnamed South Korean official. The US Embassy in Seoul and South Korea's Defense Ministry declined yesterday to confirm or deny the report.

An "improved version" of the Taepodong missile might have a range of more than 6,200 miles, the Chosun Ilbo reported. That would allow it to reach Seattle, San Francisco, or Los Angeles. A previous version of the missile had a range of about 4,150 miles, which could reach targets in Alaska.

Yonhap, the South Korean news agency, reported that North Korea tested a rocket thruster for the missile at the new launch site in May or June. The report cited unnamed sources. According to Jane's, the new launch site is one or two years away from completion.

The United States sent a ship carrying 37,000 tons of wheat to North Korea in late June, part of an international feeding operation for the more than 5 million North Koreans who, according to the U.N. World Food Program, are in urgent need of food aid this year. The U.S. government has pledged to provide most of that food.

Analysts in Seoul were not surprised by reports of North Korea's missile development, which they saw as distinct from the country's nuclear ambitions.

"This is expected because attention was focused on the nuclear issue," said Dong Young-seung, a specialist on North Korea at the Samsung Economic Research Institute. "That left North Korea with room to make progress with its missile development without much sanction from outside world."

Cha Du-hyeogn, a researcher at the Korea Institute for Defense Analysis, said that if North Korea does curtail its nuclear program in exchange for economic aid and a reduction of diplomatic sanctions, the government will "feel very nervous" and insecure.

"For them, the missile regime is their only remaining leverage against an outside threat," he said.

North Korea has 200 to 300 missiles that Japanese officials say are capable of striking virtually anywhere in Japan.