N. Korea To Japan: Don't Worry

A high North Korean official dismissed reports his government was preparing to test fire a long-range missile as "conjecture, rumor and speculation," Japanese news media said Saturday.

Japan said Thursday that it had intelligence North Korea might be preparing to test a missile capable of reaching almost anywhere in Japan, and its diplomats expressed concern to North Korean officials at meetings in New York and Beijing, the Chinese capital.

Choe Su Hon, North Korea's vice foreign minister, told Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi at a reception during the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York that the reports were groundless, the newspaper Asahi and other Japanese media reported.

Kawaguchi had told Choe such a test would violate a moratorium on missile launches that North Korea promised to observe, the reports said, citing an unidentified Foreign Ministry source.

Japan's government said earlier that intelligence indicated North Korea was beefing up troops and equipment around launch bases, suggesting it might be readying a missile test. But after a Cabinet meeting Friday to discuss the reports, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda said the movement was probably a military exercise rather than preparation for a launch.

North Korea rattled the Japanese in 1998 when it fired a test missile that crossed over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.

Kawaguchi also urged North Korea to return to stalled six-nation talks on its nuclear program, saying the U.S. government had voiced readiness to provide security assurances sought by the Pyongyang regime, Kyodo News reported, quoting an anonymous Japanese official.

Choe told Kawaguchi that the nuclear arms program was intended to counter what North Korea charges are U.S. plans to attack North Korea, Kyodo said.

Japan's worries about a possible missile test also were raised at talks in Beijing where diplomats from the two nations discussed Japanese citizens abducted by North Korean agents in the 1970s and 1980s.

The head of Japan's delegation, Akitaka Saiki, told his counterpart the issue was a "very important matter for Japan's security," the newspaper Yomiuri reported. The North Korean diplomat, Song Il Ho, didn't respond, Yomiuri said.

Song, the deputy director-general of the Asian section of the North Korean Foreign Ministry, had earlier told Japanese journalists that the missile matter was unrelated to the kidnappings and would not be a part of the talks.