Japan Authorizes N. Korean Missile Shoot-down

Japan on Friday issued the order to shoot down a North Korean rocket if it threatens the nation's territory, the top government official said.

Tokyo has readied surface-to-air missiles in and around Tokyo, as well as in Okinawa, and is putting its armed forces on standby ahead of Pyongyang's planned missile launch.

It is also deploying Aegis warships in neighboring waters.

Defense Minister Satoshi Morimoto has told forces to destroy the projectile or any parts that look set to fall on Japanese territory, Chief Cabinet Secretary Osamu Fujimura told reporters.

But North Korea's preparations for the planned rocket launch may have been delayed by heavy snow, a U.S. think tank said Friday.

Analysis of fresh satellite imagery suggests preparations at the Sohae satellite launch station are proceeding "more slowly than previously reported," the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University said.

Pyongyang announced last week that it would launch a rocket -- ostensibly aimed at placing a satellite in orbit -- between December 10 and 22.

Pyongyang insists it is a peaceful satellite launch, but the international community sees it as a poorly disguised test of ballistic missile technology, which is banned under United Nations Security Council resolutions.

"Since this is Pyongyang's first attempt to launch a long-range rocket in winter, weather may be a new factor," Nick Hansen, an expert on imagery analysis, wrote on the institute's website 38 North.

Fujimura said Japan was still hoping that North Korea would abandon its plan.

"North Korea's rocket launch clearly violates U.N. Security Council resolutions, and also contradicts the UNSC presidential statement issued after the launch in April," Fujimura said.

"If the launch is forced through, Japan will regard it as extremely deplorable.

"In close cooperation with the United States and South Korea as well as China and Russia, we are making efforts to call on North Korea to refrain from launching," he said.

U.N. diplomats inside and outside the Security Council have started consultations behind the scenes on what action to take if Pyongyang goes ahead with the launch, Kyodo News reported.

Japan, the United States and South Korea have agreed to demand the U.N. Security Council boost sanctions on North Korea to levels that match those on Iran, the Asahi Shimbun daily said.