North Korea said Friday it planned to launch an observation satellite in April, a news report said, prompting condemnation from the United States, South Korea and Japan amid concerns the launch could be used to test ballistic missile technology, dpa reported. The Kwangmyongsong-3, borne by the Unha-3 carrier rocket, was to be launched between April 12 and 16 to mark the centenary of the birth of North Korea's founder, Kim Il Sung, on April 15. The US condemned the announcement as "highly provocative" and a "direct violation" of Pyongyang's international obligations. The State Department noted that UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874 banned launches using ballistic missile technology. It added that the planned launch would pose a threat to regional security and be inconsistent with Pyongyang's recent undertaking to refrain from long-range missile launches. The US was consulting closely with international partners on next steps, the State Department statement said. The South Korean Foreign Ministry expressed "grave concern" over the planned launch, which it said would be a "clear violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1874 which bans 'any launch using ballistic missile technology'." Seoul said it would "closely cooperate" with the US, China, Russia and Japan - the other members of stalled six-way talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme - "so that North Korea ceases such a provocative action." In Tokyo, chief cabinet secretary Osamu Fujimura told a news conference that "Japan will strongly urge North Korea not to go ahead with the launch." The possible satellite launch "undermines the efforts to settle various issues, which have been made through talks" with North Korea, Fujimura said. A spokesman for the North Korean Committee for Space Technology was quoted by Pyongyang's official news agency KCNA as saying the move would "offer an important occasion of putting the country's technology of space use for peaceful purposes on a higher stage," The "polar-orbiting, Earth-observation satellite will be blasted off southward from the Sohae Satellite Launching Station" in the eastern province of North Pyongan, which lies on the Chinese border and Yellow Sea, the spokesman said. Pyongyang denied any military aspect to the launch.
