North Korea will soon launch a long-range rocket after completing preparations to put a satellite into space, its official media said today, defying international calls to scrap the plan.
"The satellite will be launched soon," the KCNA news agency said in a report monitored in Seoul.
Poor weather may have forced North Korea to delay the launch today, the government in Seoul said,
Japan withdrew an announcement that North Korea had appeared to have launched the rocket. The prime minister's office said its announcement had been a mistake.
US President Barack Obama said yesterday the international community would take action if North Korea went ahead with the launch to show Pyongyang it could not act with impunity.
"We will work with all interested partners in the international community to take appropriate steps to let North Korea know that they cannot threaten the safety and stability of other countries with impunity," Mr Obama said.
South Korean President Lee Myung-bak convened a meeting of his top security officials in the basement bunker at the presidential Blue House, South Korea's Yonhap news agency said.
Saturday is the first day in the April 4th-8th timeframe the secretive North, which tested a nuclear device in 2006, has set for what it calls a satellite launch.
The United States, South Korea and Japan say the launch is a disguised test of the Taepodong-2 missile designed to carry a warhead capable of reaching Alaska.
In its only previous test flight, in July 2006, the missile blew apart about 40 seconds after launch.
Analysts said the launch may help North Korean leader Kim Jong-il shore up support after a suspected stroke in August raised questions of his grip on power and bolster his hand in using military threats to win concessions from global powers.
With an estimated range of 6,700 km (4,200 miles), the rocket being prepared is supposed to fly over Japan, dropping boosters to its west and east on a path that runs southwest of Hawaii. North Korea had set up equipment to monitor the launch, the Yonhap quoted a South Korean official as saying.
North Korea believes it has the right to launch the rocket as part of a peaceful space programme, while the United States views it as a violation of a UN Security Council resolution passed in 2006 after Pyongyang's nuclear and other missile tests.
That resolution, number 1718, demands North Korea "suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme."
Reuters