North Korea missile face-off: US, Japan deploy destroyers, Patriots

31 Mar 2009

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Busan: With a North Korean ''ballistic missile test/ satellite-ferrying rocket launch'' expected anytime this week, two US Navy guided missile destroyers slipped out of their moorings from the Busan port in South Korea and departed to take up unspecified positions in advance. The destroyers, USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) and USS Chafee (DDG-90) are expected to assume positions where they can use their Aegis guided anti-ballistic missiles to bring down what both United States and Japan have been claiming may actually be a ''rogue missile''. 

North Korea, of course, has a different take and says the ''rocket'' is actually meant to a place a communication satellite into space orbit.

Japan has already positioned its missile boats in the Sea of Japan and also readied its Patriot missile batteries around Tokyo. Reports claim that additional batteries of this US-made anti-missile system have arrived in northern Japan yesterday. Reports suggest that Japan may also dispatch its Aegis-equipped destroyers to take up positions, like their US counterparts.

Japan has retreated from a previous hard line stance, when it was prepared to engage the North Korean missile from the moment it took off, to a softer one that now says its Patriot batteries will engage the missile only if the ICBM should disintegrate and debris fall over Japan.

According to North Korean announcements, the Taepodong-2 rocket will shed its booster stages to the east and west of Japan even as it rises through the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, Japan's upper house of parliament has unanimously passed a resolution today urging North Korea to scrap its plan, saying it would "damage peace and stability, not only in Japan but also in north-east Asia".

The US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said America had no intention of shooting down the missile itself, which satellite photographs show is sitting on a launch-pad in Musudan-ri. "If we had an aberrant missile, one that looked like it was headed for Hawaii, we might consider it, but I don't think we have any plans to do anything like that at this point," he told Fox News over the weekend.

Any ballistic missile testing or development by North Korea is banned by a 2006 United Nations resolution.

A launch is very likely to derail on-off negotiations over the country's nuclear programme, under which Pyongyang has agreed to dismantle reactors at Yongbyon in return for fuel and other economic aid. Japan and Great Britain have agreed that the UN Security Council should consider banning economic and food aid to this north-east Asian communist nation should the launch proceed.

The North Korean foreign ministry made a belligerent response saying over the weekend that "even a single word critical of the launch" from the Security Council would be interpreted as "a hostile act".

The communist nation has already threatened to follow up the rocket/missile launch with a nuclear test.

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