SEOUL — Defying international pressure, North Korea on Tuesday defended what it said was its sovereign right to develop and test long-range missiles.
In Pyongyang's first public comment on the mounting crisis, North Korean diplomats insisted that the country was not bound by a 1999 missile-testing moratorium or other international agreements against testing.
"As a sovereign state, North Korea has the right to not only develop, deploy and test-fire but also export a missile. It is not right that others tell us what to do about our sovereign rights," Han Song Ryol, North Korea's deputy chief of mission to the United Nations, was quoted today as telling South Korea's Yonhap news agency.
A North Korean diplomat visiting Tokyo, Lee Byung Du, made similar comments to Japanese reporters, saying, "This issue concerns our autonomy."
North Koreans did not elaborate on what they were doing at a missile base on their east coast, where satellites have observed the apparent assembling and fueling of a multistage missile.
But a South Korean intelligence analyst said the fact that the North Koreans were speaking openly about their right to launch a missile could be interpreted as a sign that "they are trying to find a way to have a diplomatic overture."
"I think the story is on the way to change, if you look at the words of North Korea," he said today on condition of anonymity.
U.S. defense officials have refused to say whether they would attempt to shoot down any missile launched by North Korea, and military officials in the Pacific declined to discuss the alert status of forces and ships operating as part of the limited U.S. missile defense system.
In another sign of growing concern over a missile test, former South Korean President and Nobel Laureate Kim Dae-jung today canceled a planned trip to Pyongyang next week in which he was to meet North Korea's Kim Jong Il. The trip was planned to celebrate the five-year anniversary of the landmark 2000 summit at which the two Kims met for the first time.
"It is practically impossible for him to visit in late June because of the unexpected circumstances," Jeong Se-hyun, an aide to Kim Dae-jung, told reporters.
The decision came after a meeting Tuesday in Seoul between Kim Dae-jung and the U.S. ambassador, Alexander Vershbow, during which the envoy conveyed Washington's concern over the apparent missile-launch plans.
