* Rocket crashes into sea a few minutes after launch, US and
S.Korea say
* North Korea’s Space Agency has no information on rocket
launch
* Represents second consecutive failure to put satellite in
orbit
* Japan TV says flew 120 km and crashed off west coast of
Korea
* New leader Kim Jong-un faces first major crisis
* U.S. to remain “vigilant” over North Korea threat,
Security Council to meet
(New throughout)
By Ju-min Park
SEOUL, April 13 (Reuters) – North Korea’s much hyped
long-range rocket apparently crashed into the sea a few minutes
after launch on Friday, U.S. and South Korean officials said,
dealing a blow to the prestige of the reclusive and impoverished
state as well as to its new leader.
Pyongyang had defied international pressure from the United
States, the United Nations and others to push ahead with the
launch timed to celebrate the 100th birthday of Kim Il-sung, the
deceased founder of the state.
Even close ally China had warned against the launch and
South Korean intelligence officials have said North Korea may be
ready to follow it up with a third nuclear test as it did after
a rocket launch in 2009.
“South Korean and U.S. intelligence understand that North
Korea’s missile launch failed,” a spokesman for the South’s
defence ministry told reporters at a briefing.
North Korea said it wanted the Unha-3 rocket to put a
weather satellite into orbit, although critics believed it was
designed to enhance its capacity to design a ballistic missile
to deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting the continental
United States.
The rocket crashed in a sea that separates the Korean
peninsula from China off the west coast of South Korea after
flying 120 km (75 miles) from its launch site close to the
Chinese border, officials in Seoul, Washington and Tokyo said.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command, NORAD, said
the first stage fell into the sea west of South Korea, and the
remainder of the satellite-carrying missile was deemed to have
failed.
“No debris fell on land,” NORAD said. “At no time were the
missile or the resultant debris a threat.
North Korea’s Space Agency said it had no information on the
launch, which triggered an emergency meeting of the United
Nations Security Council.
The launch was announced just weeks after a “Leap Year” deal
that saw Washington agree to provide food aid. Among the
promises made by Pyongyang in return was that it would not
launch a long range rocket or undertake nuclear tests.
The United States, South Korea and Japan condemned the
launch, with Washington, Seoul’s major backer saying it would
remain vigilant after North Korea’s “provocative” action.
PRICE OF FAILURE FOR “SUPREME COMMANDER”
Now led by 20-something Kim Jong-un, the third of his line
to hold power, North Korea had planned to make 2012 the year in
which it became a “strong and prosperous nation” and the launch
was part of a programme to burnish its credentials.
It even invited foreign media in to cover the birthday
celebrations and showed them the launch site.
“(There is) no question that the failed launch turns
speculation toward the ramifications for the leadership in
Pyongyang: a fireworks display gone bad on the biggest day of
the year,” said Scott Snyder of the Council on Foreign
Relations.
Eyes will be on how North Korea handles the failure
internally. In order to show that it remains powerful, it could
undertake a third nuclear test that would again ratchet up
international tensions and damage any prospects of a resumption
of denuclearisation and aid talks.
This will be North Korea’s second consecutive failure to get
a satellite into orbit, although it claimed success with a 2009
launch.
Although North Korea is one of the most tightly controlled
states on earth, with no free media and a tight grip on its
population, such a high profile failure could trigger a backlash
among the country’s elite.
“This is the first crisis for the new leader that has just
taken over,” said Lee Jong-won, a professor at Waseda University
in Tokyo.
“It is inevitable that they will look to find who is
responsible for the failure, and I wonder what the treatment
will be for those in the military and the hard-line officers who
have pressed for the launch.”
(Additional reporting by Yoko Kubota and Nobuhiro Kubo in
TOKYO; Paul Eckert in WASHINGTON; Writing by David Chance and
Jonathan Hopfner; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
