By Ryu Jin
Staff Reporter
South Korea and the United States urged North Korea to give up any intention to test-fire a missile.

Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, during a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell in New York Friday, called on North Korea not to test-fire a missile, warning that it can negatively affect the inter-Korean exchanges, including a project to build an industrial complex in the North. The top Seoul diplomat is visiting the U.S. for the 59th Session of the U.N. General Assembly underway in New York.

Powell also said it would bring about a bad result should the North test-launch a missile at this critical juncture, when international efforts to solve its nuclear crisis have been stalled ahead of November’s U.S. presidential race.

The U.S. has detected signs that the North may be preparing to test-fire a missile, but it is unclear whether the communist regime will really carry it out, the top U.S. diplomat was quoted as telling South Korea’s foreign minister, Ban Ki-moon.

The remark came less than a day after Japan said it was bracing for the possibility of the North’s test-firing a missile that can strike most of Japan.

Tokyo officials said intelligence indicates active movements of missile units around multiple Rodong missile launch sites in the North. The Rodong missiles have a range of up to 1,300 km, covering most of Japan except the southernmost island of Okinawa.

Hours after the Japanese report about a possible missile launch, North Korea issued one of its strongest threats against Japan, saying it would turn the nation into a ``nuclear sea of fire,’’ similar rhetoric to that directed toward Seoul in 1994 amid the first nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

North Korea’s main newspaper Rodong Sinmun relayed the threat, claiming that the danger of a nuclear war in Northeast Asia keeps increasing as a result of Washington’s push to realign its military presence in this part of the world.

On the controversy over South Korea’s past nuclear experiments, Powell said the two academic experiments were ``of a very benign nature’’ and he does not think the issue will become more serious.

The two officials reaffirmed their common position that the North should come to the negotiating table to discuss ways to resolve the standoff over its nuclear program.

In 1998, North Korea sent shock waves through the region by test-firing a missile that flew over Japan and landed in the Pacific Ocean. It has since been suspected of developing longer-range missiles.

North Korea’s missile development has been regarded as a major threat to regional security, on top of its recent suspected nuclear weapons drive.

Pyongyang declared a moratorium on missile tests in September 1999 and in May 2001 extended the decision until 2003. In a historic summit with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in September 2002, and again in May this year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il promised to continue to keep the moratorium.

South Korea said it also detected brisk movements of missile units in the North, but downplayed them, saying the activities could be part of its annual training exercises.

jinryu@koreatimes.co.kr