TOKYO, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Japan started to deploy Patriot guided-missile fire units Friday evening in response to the government's decision to intercept Pyongyang's rocket in case its launch fails and it falls onto Japanese territory, Kyodo News reported.
At Iruma Air Base in Saitama Prefecture, north of Tokyo, a fire unit capable of launching Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles left for locations in and around the capital, including the Defense Ministry headquarters near the Imperial Palace, the news agency reported.
Two Patriot fire units based at Hamamatsu Air Base in Shizuoka Prefecture will soon be moved to northeastern Japan -- one to the city of Akita, Akita Prefecture, and the other to a village near Morioka, Iwate Prefecture.
Earlier in the day, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada ordered Self- Defense Forces to destroy debris from Pyongyang's rocket in the event that its launch fails and fragments fall into the Japanese territory.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has said it will launch a communications satellite in early April.
Japan, the United States and South Korea suspect Pyongyang's planned launch may be a test-firing of a ballistic missile.
TOKYO, March 27 (Xinhua) -- Japan on Friday ordered its Self- Defense Forces to destroy debris from Pyongyang's rocket in the event that its launch fails and fragments fall into Japanese territory, Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada announced.
"I issued a necessary order to Self-Defense Force units to prepare for an event in which a North Korea (DPRK)'s projectile falls onto our country in an accident," Hamada told reporters. Full story
PYONGYANG, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Thursday it opposes any action of the United Nations against its planned satellite launch, warning it would ruin the six-party talks.
Any UN document related to the DPRK's satellite launch, no matter "chairman statement" or "press communiqué," and the act to submit the satellite issue to the UN Security Council, will be "brutal anti-DPRK movement," a DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman was cited by the official KCNA news agency as saying. Full story
WASHINGTON, March 26 (Xinhua) -- The United States will discuss issues of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) with its allies Japan and South Korea later this week, State Department deputy spokesman Gordon Duguid said Thursday.
Akitaka Saiki, director general of Japan's foreign ministry, and South Korea's Wi Sung-lak, the chief negotiator to the six-party talks on the DPRK's nuclear program "will be in Washington on Friday March 27 for consultations on North Korea issues," Duguid told reports. Full story
