Seoul (South Korea): North Korea said on Wednesday that it wants direct talks with the US over its apparent plans to test-fire a long-range missile, a day after the country issued a bristling statement in which it declared its right to carry out the launch.
Tensions in the region have soared following intelligence reports that the North was fueling a ballistic missile believed capable of reaching US territory.
The US and Japan have said they could consider sanctions against the impoverished state and push the UN Security Council for retaliatory action should the launch go ahead.
North Korea said in comments published Wednesday that its self-imposed moratorium on testing long-range missiles from 1999 no longer applies because it's not in direct dialogue with Washington, suggesting it would hold off on any launch if the US agreed to new talks.
''Some say our missile test launch is a violation of the moratorium, but this is not the case,'' Han Song Ryol, deputy chief of North Korea's mission to the United Nations, told South Korea's Yonhap news agency in an interview from New York.
''North Korea as a sovereign state has the right to develop, deploy, test fire and export a missile,'' he said. ''We are aware of the US concerns about our missile test-launch. So our position is that we should resolve the issue through negotiations.''
The North's official Korean Central News Agency also ran a report Wednesday on US officials urging direct talks between Washington and Pyongyang in regard to the standoff over the North's nuclear weapons program.
Pyongyang has consistently pressed for direct dialogue with the US, while Washington insists it will only speak to the North at six-nation nuclear talks.
The North has refused to return to those nuclear talks since November because of a US crackdown on the country's alleged illicit financial activity.
The new statement from the North came after France and the UN secretary-general raised the alarm over what are believed to be the North's preparations for a test of the Taepodong-2, with a range of up to 9,300 miles. Japan and South Korea also pledged to cooperate to stop Pyongyang's apparent plans for a launch.
On Tuesday, NorthKorea asserted its right to test-fire missiles in a statement to Japanese reporters in Pyongyang.
''This issue concerns our autonomy. Nobody has a right to slander that right,'' the Kyodo News agency quoted North Korean Foreign Ministry official Ri Pyong Dok as saying.
Kyodo also quoted Ri as saying the North is not bound by the joint declaration at international nuclear disarmament talks last year or a missile moratorium agreed to by Tokyo and Pyongyang in 2002.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il reaffirmed the moratorium - in place in practice since 1999 - in 2004.
Ri told reporters his remarks represented Pyongyang's official line on the matter, but refused to comment on whether the North would push ahead with the missile test, saying it was inappropriate for a diplomat to give further information, Kyodo said.
A pro-North Korean newspaper in Japan, Choson Sinbo, said on Wednesday the launch of what it called a satellite could take place ''anytime, which can be in a month or in a year.''
Over the weekend, Kyodo reported that NorthKorea plans to disguise the missile test as an attempt to put a satellite into orbit, as it did with the 1998 missile launch.
The international campaign to block the launch widened on Tuesday, with the French government and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan calling for a halt to test preparations.
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