SKorea Warns It Might Shoot Down NKorean Rocket

SEOUL, South Korea — Seoul is warning that it might shoot down a North Korean rocket if it strays into South Korean territory.

Defense Ministry vice spokesman Yoon Won-shik's' warning on Monday came as nearly 60 world leaders gather in Seoul for a nuclear security conference that is being overshadowed by North Korea's announcement that it will launch a satellite on a long-range rocket next month.

Washington contends that the launch is meant to test delivery systems for long-range missiles that could be mounted with nuclear weapons.

North Korea says the rocket's southerly flight path is meant to avoid other countries.

But Yoon told reporters that Seoul is considering measures to track and shoot down parts of the rocket if they violate South Korean territory.

North Korea moved a rocket to a northwestern site in preparation for a launch next month, South Korean officials insisted on Sunday, as Pyongyang pushes ahead with its launch plans.

President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urged North Korea on Sunday to stop its launch plans, warning in Seoul that they would deal sternly with any provocation. Obama said the move would jeopardize a deal in which the United States would ship food aid to the North in exchange for a nuclear freeze.

"Bad behavior will not be rewarded," Obama said in a joint news conference with Lee. "There had been a pattern, I think, for decades in which North Korea thought if they had acted provocatively, then somehow they would be bribed into ceasing and desisting acting provocatively."

Earlier Sunday, Obama made a symbolic visit to the tense, heavily armed border dividing the Koreas, six decades after the Korean War ended with a cease-fire that leaves the peninsula technically at war.

North Korea's launch preparations are expected to dominate high-level sideline discussions at an international nuclear security summit in Seoul set for Monday and Tuesday that Obama and other world leaders are attending. The launch preparations come as North Koreans and new leader Kim Jong Un mark 100 days since the death of Kim's father, Kim Jong Il.

In northwestern North Korea, the main body of a long-range rocket was transported to a building in the village of Tongchang-ri in North Phyongan province, South Korean Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff officials said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department rules. The officials provided no further details and cited the South Korean and U.S. militaries for the information.

The Tongchang-ri launch site is about 35 miles (50 kilometers) from the Chinese border city of Dandong, across the Yalu River from North Korea. Analysts describe it is a new, more sophisticated site that would allow the North to fire the rocket from the west coast to avoid sending it over other countries.

North Korea says it is planning to launch a satellite in a scientific endeavor. The launch is set for sometime around celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the April 15 birth of North Korea's late President Kim Il Sung, who was Kim Jong Il's father and the current leader's grandfather.

However, Lee said the launch violates "a U.S.-North Korea deal and is a provocative act that poses a threat to international peace and security."

Under the agreement settled last month between Washington and Pyongyang, considered a breakthrough at the time, the United States would ship food aid to the impoverished North in exchange for a moratorium on missile and nuclear tests.

Washington says North Korea's rocket launches are meant to test delivery systems for long-range missiles it hopes to mount with nuclear weapons that could target Alaska and beyond.

"President Obama and I agreed to continue to strengthen the Korea-U.S. combined defense posture and sternly deal with any provocation and threat by North Korea," Lee said.

Japan is preparing to deploy land- and sea-based interceptor missiles and is planning to issue an order to troops to shoot down the rocket if it is deemed a threat or violates Japanese airspace.

North Koreans, meanwhile, paid their respects to Kim Jong Il, with tens of thousands gathering in Pyongyang's central square.

Kim Jong Un presided over a memorial service and gun salute in Pyongyang as North Koreans across the country observed a noon moment of silence in Kim Jong Il's memory. Citizens and soldiers lined up in rows, bowing their heads before a large portrait of Kim Jong Il flanked with wreaths of white flowers.

The U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea's last long-range rocket launch in 2009. Pyongyang responded by abandoning six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and, weeks later, carrying out a nuclear test, its second.

Also Sunday, the South Korean president and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key urged North Korea to cancel its planned launch, calling it a serious threat to regional peace, according to Lee's office.

The nuclear summit follows up on one held two years ago in Washington and is meant to find ways to keep nuclear weapons and material from getting in the hands of terrorists.