SEOUL (Reuters) – North Korea appears to be preparing to test-launch its longest range ballistic missile, media reports said on Tuesday, stoking tensions just days after the reclusive state warned that the Korean peninsula was on the brink of war.
North Korea, which typically carries out missile tests in times of political friction, last week said it was scrapping all agreements with South Korea in a move analysts said was aimed at pressuring Seoul and grabbing the attention of new U.S. President Barack Obama.
The North, which tested a nuclear device in 2006, is seen as one of the greatest threats to regional security. But experts say they do not believe Pyongyang has developed the technology to miniaturize an atomic weapon so it can be mounted on a missile as a warhead.
South Korea's Yonhap news agency and Japan's Sankei Shimbun cited unnamed government sources as saying the North had been moving equipment used in the launch of its Taepodong-2 missile, which the test-fired in July 2006 only to see it fizzle and destruct a few seconds after leaving the launch pad.
A train carrying a large object had left a factory and was headed to the site of a newly constructed launch pad on the North's west coast, Yonhap quoted an unnamed South Korean government source as saying.
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