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NKorea has one more Taepodong-2 to fire: SKorea
AFP
SEOUL
Petroleumworld.com 07 07 06
North Korea has plans to test a second long-range Taepodong-2 missile but there are no signs the launch is imminent, South Korea's defense minister said Friday.
North Korea on Wednesday for the first time test-fired a Taepodong-2, which is believed to be able to hit the fringes of the United States but quickly crashed into the Sea of Japan (East Sea).
"At the outset, two sets of Taepodong-2 were transported from a place near Pyongyang. One of them was already launched, and the other was not," Defense Minister Yoon Kwang-Ung told Yonhap news agency.
"But the (second) missile has not been seen at the launching site" at Musdanri in northeastern Hwadae county, Yoon said.
South Korean opposition lawmaker Chung Hyung-Keun on Thursday quoted the intelligence agency as saying North Korea was repairing technical flaws that doomed the first Taepodong-2 before launching another.
US officials, speaking in Washington on condition of anonymity, discounted the possibility of an imminent second launch by the self-declared nuclear power.
"Just look at the process. You have to get it out there, you have to get it up, you have to match it, you've got to fuel it. We're looking at a minimum of days, if not weeks," said a US defense official.
"There's no indications of preparations of a second launch," he said.
North Korea on Thursday hailed its launches -- which also included six short- or medium-range missiles -- as a success and pledged to fire more, saying it was boosting its defenses in the face of US hostility.
US President George W. Bush described the communist regime in 2002 as part of an "axis of evil" with Saddam Hussein's Iraq and the Islamic republic of Iran.
lim/sct/ag
AFP 07 0132 GMT 07 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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