S. Korea to ‘take steps’ if N.K. launches rocket

The South Korean government will take countermeasures in cooperation with the international community should North Korea go ahead with its plan to launch a rocket, Seoul’s Unification Minister Yu Woo-ik said Saturday.

Yu, an advocate of “flexible” policies on North Korea in the Lee Myung-bak administration oft-described as “hardline,” likened the North Korean regime to a “car running down a slope with its wheels and brakes broken” in an interview with Japanese daily Asahi Shimbun.

“We are at the stage of considering all possible measures,” Yu was quoted by the daily.

He did not elaborate on what kind of measures the South is considering.

“It would be regrettable if North Korea broke a promise and blew the chance of starting to ease its people’s starvation,” he said.

He was referring to the Feb. 29 agreement between the U.S. and North Korea under which Pyongyang agreed to put a moratorium on its long-range missile and nuclear programs in return for 240,000 tons of food aid.

While the international community including the U.S., the South, Japan, Russia and the EU regard the North’s planned rocket launch as a cover to test a long-range missile, and say it violates a U.N. Security Council Resolution banning ballistic missile technology, the North is repeating its claim that the satellite launch, scheduled for April 12-16, is for peaceful purposes.

Concerns raised by the international community partly come from past experiences. The North conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 after two previous rocket launches.

Pyongyang on Saturday struck back, saying a U.S. suspension of food aid in retaliation for the rocket launch would be a breach of the Feb. 29 agreement.

The North’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said a decision to put food aid on hold would run counter to the previous claim by the U.S. that Washington does not relate humanitarian issues with political issues.

“The U.S. has so far insisted that it does not relate humanitarian issues with political issues. But it responded to the DPRK’s planned satellite launch with the announcement to stop following through on its commitment to food aid,” said the unnamed spokesman. DPRK is the abbreviation of the official name of North Korea.

“It would be a regrettable act to scrap the DPRK-U.S. agreement in its entirety as it is a violation of the core articles of the Feb. 29 DPRK-U.S. agreement.”

By Kim Yoon-mi (yoonmi@heraldcorp.com)