Japan may refer NKorea to UN: official

Japan has the backing of several of its G20 partners including South Korea and Britain to refer North Korea to the UN Security Council over its imminent rocket launch, a senior official said.

"The launch will clearly constitute a violation of the Security Council resolutions, so it needs to be discussed in the appropriate manner in the council," said Osamu Sakashita, deputy cabinet secretary for public relations.

The North Korean launch could come as soon as this weekend, diplomats believe.

"We have been discussing with a number of countries about taking this to the UN and we have the support of countries including the United Kingdom and South Korea," Sakashita told journalists at a pre-G20 summit briefing late Wednesday.

North Korea started fueling a rocket ahead of a planned satellite launch that could come as early as this weekend, CNN television reported on Wednesday, citing an unnamed US military official.

Fueling would confirm the regime is entering the final preparations for the launch which it has announced will occur during an April 4-8 window.

A senior defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP on Wednesday afternoon there was no clear sign yet that fueling had begun.

North Korea has said it will send up a communications satellite over northern Japan, but the United States and its Asian allies suspect the launch is a cover for testing a long-range ballistic missile test that could -- in theory -- hit Alaska.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned during a visit to Tokyo that the North Korean launch would have consequences at the UN Security Council, saying: "It is an unfortunate example of provocation by the North Koreans."

Pyongyang threatened on Wednesday to shoot down any US spy planes if they violate its airspace to monitor the imminent launch, in a statement carried by state radio.

Recent commercial satellite pictures suggest preparations for a launch, with the removal of tarpaulins that had covered the shape of the rocket's tip, according to weapons experts.

"For quite a while, they had kept it shrouded and I think that was to deny us information on exactly what was going on and going into the missile," said Bruce Bennett, a senior defense analyst at the Los Angeles-based Rand Corporation.

"But at some point, you have to remove the shroud and get ready for a launch," he said.

The rounded shape of the rocket's nose indicated it was a satellite, as North Korea has announced, and not a warhead, Bennett and another analyst said.

A warhead requires a narrower outline, resembling a sharpened pencil, to allow it to survive re-entry into the Earth's atmosphere, Bennett said.

"Unless the front end of the missile as we're seeing it now is just a nosecone covering the warhead -- which is a possibility -- unless it's that, then it doesn't look very much like a warhead," he told AFP.

"A warhead would not be as rounded."

The latest commercial photos were "pretty grainy" but "it doesn't look like a warhead re-entry vehicle," said David Albright of the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security.





Bleier