Manila seeks US help over North Korea rocket launch

Agencies/Manila

Philippine Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin inspects troops during the 115th Philippine Army Day, at the military headquarters in Taguig city, south of Manila, yesterday. Gazmin said the Philippines will ask for US assistance in tracking down the path of North Korea’s planned rocket launch and ask Pyongyang to heed warning from US and Japan to stop the launch to avoid tension in the region

The Philippine government yesterday said it anticipated US help to track a North Korean long-range rocket, part of which is expected to land off the Philippines.“Of course we need the help of the US to monitor the path because we don’t have that capability,” Defence Secretary Voltaire Gazmin told reporters.“But with our alliances, we will be provided with the necessary information. We should know the details so that we will know how to inform and warn our people who will be in the (rocket’s) path,” he said.North Korea announced last week it would launch the rocket to place a satellite in orbit between April 12 and 16, insisting it was for peaceful space research.But the US and other nations see the launch as a disguised ballistic missile test, and say that it would breach a UN ban on North Korean missile launches.A previous North Korean long-range rocket in 2009 flew over Japanese territory and the boosters landed safely in waters off Japan.In a letter to the UN’s International Maritime Organisation, North Korea said the second stage of its latest rocket was expected to splash down 190kms  east of the northern Philippines.The first stage of the rocket would fall about 140kms off South Korea’s west coast, in international waters between China and the South, the letter said.On Wednesday, the Philippine government joined its US and South Korean allies in criticising North Korea’s planned launch, calling it “unacceptable”.“The Philippine military is ready to co-ordinate with its US counterpart in the monitoring of the planned launch,” the foreign department said in a separate statement.Meanwhile UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon yesterday said he would raise North Korea’s planned rocket launch at a Seoul nuclear summit next week, expressing “deep concern” over the issue. “I am going to discuss the issue with the president of the Republic of (South Korea) in Seoul and I will also engage with other leaders attending the nuclear summit,” Ban told a press conference in Malaysia. Pyongyang has said any South Korean attempt to address the North’s nuclear programme at the March 26-27 Seoul summit would be seen as a declaration of war. But the programme and the rocket launch were expected to be hot topics on the sidelines of the meeting, which will see US President Barack Obama and other world leaders meet to discuss nuclear security issues.“As secretary-general of the UN I express my deep concern by the announcement of the (North Korean) government (on) their intention to launch a satellite,” Ban said.Ban, a South Korean, also called the planned launch “a clear violation” of Security Council resolutions and said it “threatens the peace and security on the Korean peninsula”. He said it could also undermine recent positive signs on long-running international efforts to end North Korea’s nuclear programme.Under a deal announced last month but now in jeopardy, Washington would offer substantial food aid for a partial nuclear freeze. It has raised modest hopes of progress in the denuclearisation efforts.IAEA ‘in talks’ with PyongyangThe UN atomic agency IAEA has begun consultations with North Korea over a possible visit to the country by its inspectors to monitor its nuclear activities, a spokeswoman said yesterday. “I can confirm that the IAEA has started consultations with the DPRK (North Korea) about its invitation,” Gill Tudor, spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said. She could not yet say, however, when the consultations would end and when the inspectors’ visit to the isolated country might take place. Pyongyang announced earlier this week that it had invited Vienna-based UN inspectors to monitor a nuclear freeze deal with the US. Tudor later confirmed the IAEA had received the invitation last Friday. North Korea expelled the agency’s inspectors in 2009. Last month however, it agreed to suspend its uranium enrichment programme, along with long-range missile launches and nuclear tests, in return for 240,000 tonnes of US food. It also promised to readmit IAEA inspectors.