Rattled by North Korea's plans to launch a satellite, Japan ordered its military Friday to prepare a missile defense system to block any dangerous debris that might fall on its territory if the rocket launch goes wrong.
Pyongyang has said it will launch a communications satellite between April 4 and 8, but regional powers believe the real purpose is to test a long-range missile, the Taepodong-2, which is already on its launch pad.
"I have issued an order ... to prepare to destroy any object that might fall on Japan as a result of an accident involving a flying object from North Korea," Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters after a meeting of Japan's Security Council.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said this week the launch would deal a blow to six-party talks to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program. Those talks sputtered to a halt in December over disagreement on how to check that North Korea was disabling its nuclear facilities.
North Korea has given international agencies notice the rocket's planned trajectory should take it over Japan, dropping booster stages in the sea to its east and west. It said any attempt to shoot down the rocket itself would be an act of war.
Hamada reiterated Japan's call for the reclusive state to cancel the launch and said Tokyo would do everything it could to protect the Japanese people. But he stressed Japan would only act if the object threatened to fall on its territory.
In its only previous test flight in 2006, the Taepodong-2 either blew up or was deliberately destroyed after failing just after launch.
Japanese officials said the chances of debris falling on its territory were slim and called on the public not to panic.
Confronting prickly North
Top nuclear envoys from Japan, South Korea and the United States were to meet in Washington later on Friday in a sign of growing concern over the launch, the first big test for U.S. President Barack Obama in dealing with the prickly North.
A State Department official said the U.S. negotiator to the six-party talks, Sung Kim, and special U.S. representative on North Korea policy Stephen Bosworth, would meet separately with their Japanese and South Korean counterparts and then all three would have "informal" talks.
"They are in town for consultations on North Korea issues and will discuss the full range of those," said the official.
Russia said North Korea should abstain from testing the rocket and called for dialogue with Pyongyang, a day after Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov cautioned the international community against making hasty decisions.
"We understand that the current situation in the region of North-East Asia is tense, and this is why it would be better if our partners in North Korea abstained from this, from this launch," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexei Borodavkin said.
New sanctions
Japan, the United States and South Korea have said the launch would violate U.N. resolutions passed after earlier weapons tests by Pyongyang.
North Korea already faces a range of U.N. sanctions but many analysts doubt new ones would get past China in the Security Council. China, the nearest Pyongyang has to a powerful ally, has a veto in the council.
North Korea warned that any action by the Security Council to punish it would be a "hostile act."
Japan's constitution does not allow the military to intercept a missile if it is clearly heading elsewhere, but Tokyo would try to shoot down a missile aimed at Japanese territory or intercept any debris.
The Taepodong-2
Japan began deploying its ground-based Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missile batteries on Friday, with units leaving Iruma air base northwest of Tokyo to be positioned closer to the political and financial centers of the capital, a defense ministry spokesman said.
Japan's two ballistic missile defense ships were also set to leave the southern port of Sasebo on Saturday, Kyodo news agency said, but the ministry spokesman declined to comment.
Washington has said it could with "high probability" intercept any North Korean missile heading for U.S. territory if ordered to do so.
The Taepodong-2 is a two- or three-stage missile with a designed range of 4,160 miles, which means it could hit Alaska. One study says that with a reduced payload it could travel 6,200 miles, which would theoretically put the western U.S. mainland within range.
