March 8, 2003	Saturday	Muharram 4, 1424

WASHINGTON, March 7: North Korea sent up another warning flag in its confrontation with Washington on Friday, issuing a notice to mariners that indicates they are preparing to conduct another test of an anti-ship cruise missile in the Sea of Japan as early as this weekend.

“We are aware that North Korean officials have announced a sea closure area in the Sea of Japan,” said Lieutenant Commander Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, adding that the closure was from March 8 to 11.

“This area is the similar in size and location as the area in effect during the February 25 launch,” he said. “Such closures are typically a precursor to a launch.”

North Korea tested a short-range anti-ship cruise missile on February 25 local time from a northeastern coastal area.

It would be the latest in a pattern of actions by the North Koreans that have ratcheted up tensions on the peninsula and put the United States under increasing pressure to engage Pyongyang in direct talks.

A new missile test could set the stage for another aerial confrontation over US surveillance flights monitoring North Korean testing from international airspace over the Sea of Japan.

On March 2, North Korean fighters armed with heat-seeking missiles surprised an unarmed US RC-135S “Cobra Ball” surveillance plane, flying within 50 feet of it during a 22-minute chase over the Sea of Japan.

It was the first time a US surveillance flight had been intercepted by North Korean fighters since 1969, when North Korean warplanes shot down a US surveillance plane, killing all 31 people on board.

The Pentagon ordered two dozen long-range bombers to Guam last week as a deterrent to North Korea at a time when US forces are massing around Iraq for a possible invasion that could tie down a substantial number of forces for a long time.

US intelligence anticipates escalating challenges in the air, along maritime boundaries and in the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas as Pyongyang maneuvers to revive its nuclear weapons program.

US officials say that North Korea also could test launch Nodong or long-range Taepo-dong missiles with virtually no warning.

At a press conference Thursday night, President George W. Bush reaffirmed his support for a strategy that seeks to persuade China, Russia, Japan and South Korea to pressure Pyongyang to halt its drive for nuclear weapons.

“This is a regional issue. I say regional issue because there’s a lot of countries that have got a direct stake into whether or not North Korea has nuclear weapons,” Bush said from the East Room of the White House.

The United States, however, so far has failed to enlist the backing of surrounding countries, which have urged Washington to enter into bilateral talks with Pyongyang to try to defuse the crisis.

Prominent Democrats and former Clinton administration officials have warned that US policy is in disarray, and suggested that Washington’s focus on Iraq has caused it to neglect the growing danger on the Korean peninsula.

Since being confronted by the United States last fall about a secret uranium enrichment program, North Korea has cast aside a 1994 agreement that froze its nuclear program. It has also withdrawn from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and restarted a five-megawatt reactor at its Yongbyon nuclear complex.

US intelligence is watching closely for signs of reactivation of a plutonium processing plant at Yongbyon.

Once it is operating, the United States believes that North Korea could produce enough weapons-grade plutonium for a half-dozen nuclear weapons in a matter of months.

RUSSIA UNCONCERNED: The head of Russia’s atomic energy ministry said on Friday that he had few concerns about North Korea’s decision to restart its Yongbyon nuclear reactor.

“The leadership of our ministry does not share the worries of some nations about this matter,” the ITAR-TASS news agency quoted Alexander Rumyantsev as saying.

He said the complex should be able to produce some 500 kilograms of plutonium within several years but that Pyongyang lacked other equipment necessary to reprocess the fuel into weapons-grade material.—AFP