N. Korea’s rocket launch plans boost tensions

The North, in a notable change, admitted its April 2012 failure and said that its scientists would look into the cause. In almost every way, the upcoming launch feels like a reprise: The same launch site, in the country’s northwest, is being used, and the satellite has the same name, Kwangmyongsong-3, as does the rocket, Unha-3.

A spokesman for the [North] Korean Committee for Space Technology was quoted in Pyongyang’s state media as saying that the North has analyzed its previous mistakes and improved the “reliability and precision of the satellite and carrier rocket.”

(Uncredited/AP) - This Nov. 26, 2012 file satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows the Sohae Satellite Launch Station in Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province, North Korea. North Korea said it will launch a long-range rocket between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22.

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“The question is whether they have really gone through the engineering corrections or are they rushing it for political reasons?” said Dan Pinkston, a Seoul-based security expert for the International Crisis Group. “That’s tough to say.”

The Saturday announcement did not come as a total surprise, because recent satellite images had shown a flurry of activity at the launch site, including the arrival, in trailers, of two stages of the rocket. Analysts in Seoul said the North was taking a risk with its launch because the move could anger China, its lone major benefactor, whose Communist Party last month promoted a new circle of leaders .

A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, asked Tuesday about a potential launch, said only that “it’s the common responsibility and shared interest of all parties concerned to maintain the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula.”

Experts offered mixed opinions on how, or whether, the North’s planned launch will color the South Korean presidential race, a close contest between ruling conservative party candidate Park Geun-hye and liberal candidate Moon Jae-in. The North has a strong preference for a liberal leader in Seoul, and Moon has called for a resumption of the aid and joint economic projects that were scrapped under current President Lee Myung-bak.

South Korean voters, though, are notoriously volatile, and last-minute opinion polls often misread the ultimate election winners. The North’s security threat could drive the appetite for a hard response to Pyongyang. It could just as easily build sentiment for a softer approach in Seoul that eases tensions.

A statement from Moon’s Democratic United Party described the North’s planned launch as a “long-range rocket test with a military purpose,” and it cautioned Park’s Saenuri Party from using this “occasion to raise security concerns favoring their election campaign.”

The Saenuri Party, in its own statement, called on Pyongyang to abandon its launch plan and accused it of trying to “influence the presidential election by creating instability in the Korean Peninsula and . . . [to] induce an election result favoring North Korea.”

Yoonjung Seo contributed to this report.