North Korea has extended the window for a widely condemned long-range rocket launch by a week after discovering a "technical deficiency", the isolated state's news agency said on Monday. The launch, viewed by the United States, Japan and South Korea as a test for developing a ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, had been scheduled for December 10-22 to coincide with the first anniversary of the death of former North Korean ruler Kim Jong-il.
"(Engineers) found a technical deficiency in the first-stage control engine module of the rocket carrying the satellite and decided to extend the satellite launch period up to December 29," the KCNA news agency quoted a space agency spokesman as saying. North Korea is banned from carrying out any missile or nuclear-related tests by UN resolutions imposed in 2006 and 2009 after it conducted nuclear tests. A third rocket launch, in April, ended in failure.
The North insists this launch is aimed merely at putting a weather satellite into orbit. But it is believed to be developing an intercontinental missile with a range of more than 6,700 km which would have the capacity to hit the continental United States. A South Korean news report said on Monday that the North was moving a new rocket component to its missile test site. A trailer carrying the component, believed to be a third-stage rocket, was seen by satellite on Saturday being moved from a missile plant in Pyongyang to the Tongchang-ri missile launch site, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper quoted a government source as saying.