South Korea boosts surveillance after moves missile

PanARMENIAN.Net - South Korea said on Wednesday, April 10 it has asked China, North Korea's only major ally, to rein in the hermit state and has raised its surveillance after the North moved at least one long-range missile in readiness for a possible launch, Reuters reported.

Admiral Samuel Locklear, the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific region, said the U.S. military believed North Korea had moved an unspecified number of Musudan missiles to its east coast.

An Obama administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters "our working assumption is that there are two missiles that they may be prepared to launch". That was in line with South Korean media reports.

The North has been threatening the United States and its "puppet" South Korea on an almost a daily basis in recent weeks, although the threats appear to be aimed partly at boosting internal support for young leader Kim Jong-un.

The Combined Forces Command in Seoul raised its "Watchcon 3" status, a normal defense condition, by one level in order to step up monitoring and increase the number of intelligence staff, a senior military official told the Yonhap news agency in the South on Wednesday.

"There are clear signs that the North could simultaneously fire off Musudan, Scud and Nodong missiles," Yonhap quoted an unidentified official as saying.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yun Byung-se told a parliamentary hearing in Seoul that he was working through diplomatic channels in an attempt to rein in Pyongyang.

"Through close coordination with China and Russia, the Korean government has been continuing to make efforts to persuade North Korea to change its attitude," Yun said.

China is North Korea's sole major ally, although it backed recent United Nations resolutions against Pyongyang, and Moscow was a supporter of North Korea as the Soviet Union.

Pyongyang has frequently tested short-range Scud missiles but the longer-range Musudan and Nodong missiles are an unknown quantity. The Musudan missiles are reckoned to have a range of roughly 3,000-3,500 km (1,865-2,175 miles).