North Korea directed its people to hoist the national flag and await a state message on television on Sunday, a Japanese newspaper said, amid reports the North was planning a new missile test.
The Sankei Shimbun, citing unnamed Japanese government sources, said that North Korean citizens had been told to raise the flag at 5am GMT and await the message. There was no immediate word of any test.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said North Korea’s reported instruction might not be linked to the missile launch, saying it could be preparations for another national event.
Monday marks the 42nd anniversary of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s start at the central committee of the Stalinist state’s ruling Workers’ Party, Yonhap said, quoting an unnamed Seoul official.
“On June 18 last year, North Korea also told its people to watch an evening television report,” the official told Yonhap.
On Saturday, the news agency cited a South Korean lawmaker who quoted North Korean delegations he met last week as denying plans to test-fire a ballistic missile.
Thomas Schieffer, the United States ambassador to Japan, said on Saturday there were signs the self-declared nuclear power was preparing a missile launch, warning that such a move would be “grave and provocative”.
A long-range test would be the first since the communist state shocked the world in 1998 by firing a missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean.
North Korea last year declared it had nuclear weapons but also reached a broad agreement to give up its programme in exchange for aid and security guarantees.
But six-nation negotiations broke down in November, with North Korea refusing to return to the negotiating table unless the United States drops financial sanctions imposed over alleged counterfeiting and money-laundering. – AFP