US envoy warns North Korea over rocket launch, airline threat

The new US envoy on North Korea warned Pyongyang on Friday against launching a rocket and called the regime’s threat against South Korean airliners near its airspace "a provocation."

The isolated Stalinist state has announced it is readying to fire a rocket for what it calls a satellite launch and what Washington believes is a test for a missile that could theoretically reach Alaska.

On Thursday North Korea heightened tensions by saying it could not guarantee security for Seoul’s commercial flights near its territory because an imminent major US-South Korean military exercise could trigger a war.

US envoy Stephen Bosworth, President Barack Obama’s point man on North Korea, criticised both statements.

"We agreed strongly it would be best if North Korea did not fire a missile, whether it’s a satellite launch or missile," he said after meeting Japan’s Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone in Tokyo.

"For us it makes no difference."

Speaking on North Korea’s threat to airliners — which officials say will cause some 200 Korean Air and Asiana flights to be re-routed in the next two weeks — he said "it’s a provocation and it’s unacceptable."

Bosworth also said the nations involved in six-party talks on the North’s denuclearisation — South Korea, the United States, China, Russia and Japan — want Pyongyang to refrain from the launch.

"We hope North Korea refrains from the provocation of firing a missile, and if they don’t refrain, if that does happen, then obviously we’ll have to take stock and decide how to respond and what we’ll do," he said.

"But I’m confident that we can respond in a common fashion."

He also said he and Nakasone "agreed we would like to resume the six-party talks as soon as possible."

Bosworth, who succeeds US diplomat Christopher Hill, came to Tokyo after visiting Beijing and was Saturday due to fly to Seoul, where he formerly served as US ambassador.

He said while there he would meet with his South Korean counterpart as well as the Russian delegation, who he said was also visiting the city by coincidence.

He added: "I have no plans to visit North Korea at this point on this trip. I’d assume that I would be going to North Korea sometime."