North Korea has put a long-range missile in place for a launch the United States warned would violate UN sanctions imposed on the reclusive state for past weapons tests.
South Korea said today the launch would be a serious challenge to security in the north Asian region, which accounts for one sixth of the global economy.
The planned launch, which regional powers see as a disguised military exercise, is the first big test for US President Barack Obama in dealing with the prickly North, whose efforts to build a nuclear arsenal has long plagued ties with Washington.
The South Korean daily Chosun Ilboquoted a diplomatic source as saying the North could technically fire the missile, which has the range to hit US territory, by the weekend.
This is earlier than the April 4-8th timeframe Pyongyang announced for what it says is the launch of a communications satellite.
"Technically a launch is possible within three to four days," the Chosun Ilboquoted a diplomatic source in Seoul as saying.
Yesterday, a US counter-proliferation official said that North Korea had appeared to have positioned the rocket on its launch pad.
The US has spy satellites trained on the Taepodong-2 missile launch pad at North Korea's east coast Musudan-ri missile base.
Another US official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said North Korea had placed together two stages of what is expected to be a three-stage rocket.
Once it has been positioned on the launch pad, North Korea will need several days to fuel the rocket which could, in theory, carry a warhead as far as Alaska. The only previous test flight of the rocket in July 2006 ended in failure when it blew apart within seconds of lift-off.
"We strongly urge the North to immediately stop the launch of a long-range missile, which would be a clear violation of the UN Security Council resolution 1718," South Korean Defence Ministry spokesman Won Tae-jae told reporters, calling the move a serious challenge to regional security and an act of aggression.
South Korea plans to dispatch an advanced destroyer capable of tracking and shooting down missiles to waters off the east coast, Yonhap news agency quoted government sources as saying.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, during a visit to Mexico, said the launch would deal a blow to six-party international talks to end Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme.
Those talks sputtered to a halt in December over disagreement on how to check the North was disabling its nuclear facilities.
Reuters