N. Korea Plans New Missile Test, U.S. Says

The North Korean government appears to be preparing to test-launch another missile, a senior U.S. defense official said Wednesday, warning that such a move could have “very real consequences” for the Pyongyang regime’s relationship with the United States.

Kurt Campbell, deputy assistant secretary of Defense for Asia-Pacific affairs, declined to say what signs the United States had seen of launch preparations, or to predict when the launch might take place.

But he told reporters that “provocative actions like this that we think might be contemplated by North Korea do have very real implications for our ability and desire to continue” trying to normalize relations with the Communist government.

On Aug. 31, the North Koreans test-fired over Japan a three-stage rocket with a 4,000-mile range. The move signaled that North Korea was further along in rocketry development than previously believed. The launch jolted officials in the United States, Japan and other countries in the region.

The United States and South Korea have demanded that North Korea abandon ballistic missile development as a condition for normalizing relations. In May, former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, acting as a special emissary, offered to lift a decades-old U.S. economic embargo if Pyongyang ended missile development and made other concessions.

Analysts have said the North Koreans soon might be able to launch missiles with considerably longer ranges.

Tensions between North and South Korea are running high. South Korea, where the United States maintains 37,000 troops, recently sank a North Korean gunboat in disputed waters.

Nevertheless, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan continue to go ahead with plans to provide a light-water nuclear power reactor to the North in exchange for Pyongyang freezing its nuclear weapons program.

Perry visited North Korea on President Clinton’s behalf after Pyongyang allowed U.S. officials to inspect a mysterious underground site that Washington suspected was part of a potential nuclear program. The purpose of the site remains unclear.

A Japanese official has warned that North Korea has also deployed more than 10 Rodong ballistic missiles with a range of up to 800 miles, according to a report in the Nihon Keizai newspaper.

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Associated Press contributed to this report.