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Report: DPRK may fire missile toward Hawaii

(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-06-18 15:16

SEOUL, South Korea - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) may launch a long-range ballistic missile toward Hawaii in early July, a Japanese news report said Thursday, as Russia and China urged the country to return to international disarmament talks on its nuclear program.

Marines from the Republic of Korea (ROK) check their equipment before a military drill to prepare against possible attack by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) near the border village of Panmunjom that separates the two Koreas since the Korean War, in Paju, ROK, Wednesday, June 17, 2009. The DPRK warned Wednesday of a "Thousand-Fold" military retaliation against the US and its allies if provoked, the latest threat in a drumbeat of rhetoric in defense of its nuclear program. [Agencies]

The missile, believed to be a long-range Taepodong-2, would be launched from the DPRK's Dongchang-ni site on the northwestern coast, said the Yomiuri daily, Japan's top-selling newspaper. It cited an analysis by the Japanese Defense Ministry and intelligence gathered by US reconnaissance satellites.

The missile launch could come between July 4 and 8, the paper said.

While the newspaper speculated the Taepodong-2 could fly over Japan and toward Hawaii, it said the missile would not be able to hit Hawaii's main islands, which are about 4,500 miles (7,200 kilometers) from the Korean peninsula.

A spokesman for the Japanese Defense Ministry declined to comment on the report. The Republic of Korea (ROK)'s Defense Ministry and the National Intelligence Service - the country's main spy agency - said they could not confirm it.

Related readings:  Obama,Lee warn DPRK over N-plan  DPRK warns US of '1,000-fold' military action  Pentagon: DPRK missiles able to hit US soon  DPRK: US journalists admitted illegal crossing  DPRK warns of nuclear war amid tensions

Tension on the Korean peninsula has spiked since the DPRK conducted its second nuclear test on May 25 in defiance of international warnings. It declared Saturday that it would bolster its nuclear programs and threatened war in protest of UN sanctions taken for the nuclear test.

US officials have said the DPRK has been preparing to fire a long-range missile capable of striking the western US. In Washington on Tuesday, Gen. James Cartwright, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it would take at least three to five years for the DPRK to pose a real threat to the US west coast.

President Barack Obama and the ROK President Lee Myung-bak met in Washington on Tuesday for a landmark summit in which they agreed to build a regional and global "strategic alliance" to persuade the DPRK to dismantle all its nuclear weapons. Obama declared it (the DPRK) a "grave threat" to the world and pledged that the new UN sanctions on the DPRK will be aggressively enforced.

The independent International Crisis Group think tank, meanwhile, said the DPRK's massive stockpile of chemical weapons is no less serious a threat to the region than its nuclear arsenal.

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