North Korea reported to fire short-range missiles into sea

Launches often coincide with tension in region

SEOUL - North Korea has fired two short-range missiles into the Yellow Sea, a South Korean news report said yesterday, raising tensions as global powers try to make Pyongyang uphold a nuclear disarmament deal.

North Korea fired the missiles Tuesday as part of routine military training, South Korea's Yonhap news agency, citing an unidentified government official, reported.

The North, however, has a history of timing its missile launches to periods of increased tension in the region, in saber-rattling bids aimed to show that it is ready to take a hard and defiant line, analysts have said.

"North Korea declared a no-sail order in the [Yellow Sea] before the missile launch," Yonhap quoted the unidentified South Korean official as saying.

The Bush administration declined to discuss intelligence on the reported missile firing, but said its concerns were longstanding and well documented.

"North Korea's development, deployment, and proliferation of missiles and missile-related materials, equipment and technology pose a threat to the region and the world," a US Defense Department spokesman said.

"The entire world doesn't want to see weapons of mass destruction or missile technology proliferated to other people, that could use it against us or other countries" said General Walter Sharp, commander of the US military in South Korea.

"It's all of our obligation to be able to watch that, report it, and to stop it," he told reporters in Washington.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said firing such missiles was "not helpful in any way in managing tensions within the region."

North Korea maintains an arsenal of missiles that can reach all of South Korea and most of Japan. In recent months, it has been upgrading its launch sites, according to local media citing intelligence sources.

Last week, a senior US diplomat went to Pyongyang in a bid to persuade North Korea to return to a disarmament-for-aid deal and halt its plans to restart a Soviet-era nuclear plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium.

Assistant US Secretary of State Christopher Hill has declined to say whether he made progress in his talks, which were focused on having the secretive North agree to a system to verify checks it made about its nuclear arms program.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who on Tuesday briefed President Bush on Hill's visit, told reporters: "We are continuing to work on the issue over whether the verification protocol meets our standards."

The nuclear agreement North Korea struck with the five regional powers in February 2007 seemed in peril after Pyongyang, angry at not being removed from a US terrorism blacklist, vowed last month to rebuild the aging Yongbyon nuclear plant.

Washington said it would take the North off the terrorism list, bringing economic and diplomatic benefits, once a system had been agreed to to verify its claims.

A senior Vienna diplomat familiar with North Korea and UN monitoring there said Hill probably received a significant proposal from the North Koreans, who may be trying to squeeze last-minute concessions.

"Knowing how late it is in the current administration and the ill-will that's been generated between the two sides," the diplomat said, the proposal "could well be a non-starter."