SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Saturday that it would try to launch another long-range rocket later this month, as the country prepared to commemorate the death a year ago of longtime ruler Kim Jong-il and as his son, Kim Jong-un, struggles to bolster his credentials as a leader.
The launching, which North Korea said would take place between Dec. 10 and Dec. 22, is likely to prompt international condemnations and heighten already strained tensions with Washington and its allies. Critics consider North Korea’s launching of a Unha-3 rocket as a cover for testing technology for intercontinental ballistic missiles.
In a previous effort in April, a rocket blasted off from the launch site on the west coast near China only to disintegrate shortly afterward, failing in its goal of putting an earth-observation satellite into orbit.
Saturday’s announcement came at a sensitive time in the region. South Korea is gearing up for a presidential election on Dec. 19, and Japan plans lower house elections on Dec. 16. In Washington, President Obama will begin his second term in January.
“For Kim Jong-un, a successful rocket launching may be the best he can think of to show his achievements in his first year in power,” said Kim Yong-hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University in Seoul and a visiting scholar in international studies at Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Kim took over after the death of his father on Dec. 17, 2011.
April’s launch led to the collapse of a deal under which Washington promised to ship humanitarian aid to North Korea in return for North Korea’s promise to suspend nuclear and missile tests, as well as uranium enrichment, and allow United Nations monitors back into its main nuclear complex.
The official Korean Central News Agency quoted an unidentified spokesman for the Korean Committee for Space Technology as saying that North Korea had “analyzed the mistakes” made in the failed April attempt and had improved the precision and reliability of the rocket and satellite. The rocket is expected to take the same path as the abortive April launching, traveling between China and the Korean Peninsula. If successful, the spent second-stage booster will fall into the ocean off the Philippines. North Korean said on Saturday that it would conduct the launching “transparently” and according to “international practices.”
South Korea expressed “serious concern” about the North’s plan, calling it “a grave provocation” in defiance of international warnings and said it would trigger a “strong response” from the international community. “The North must realized that its repeated provocations have only deepened its isolation,” the South Korean Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Since 1998, North Korea has launched several long-range rockets, which the United States and South Korean officials say have all exploded in midair or failed in their goal of putting satellites into orbit. North Korea, however, has insisted that two satellites were circling the earth, broadcasting songs praising the Kim dynasty.
North Korea has often used nuclear and missile threats during changes of power within the region as a way to try and force the new governments to engage in talks and possibly offer concessions. North Korea has also been accused of using military provocations to influence elections in the South.
This time, the announcement about the launch “could very well have to do primarily with domestic political considerations, that Kim Jong-un wants a demonstrable a feat to boost his legitimacy, and his technicians have assured him they are ready,” said John Delury, a North Korea expert at Yonsei University in Seoul. “It doesn’t hurt that South Korea is in the middle of a string of aborted efforts at launching a satellite of their own — should Pyongyang succeed, it scores points in the ongoing inter-Korean rivalry, but also highlights what it sees as the hypocrisy of banning one Korea from doing what the other Korea does freely.”
South Korea has twice failed to launch a rocket with a satellite on board — in 2009 and again in 2010. Its third attempt has been delayed twice in the last two months because of technical glitches. North Korea has been citing South Korea’s space program to help justify its own rocket development.
Mr. Kim, the analyst, said it would be hard to predict how the planned rocket launching, whether successful or not, would affect the election in South Korea, which pits Park Geun-hye, the conservative candidate from the governing Sanuri Party, against Moon Jae-in, the liberal opposition candidate.
The North’s provocation may be a disadvantage for Ms. Park, who has never served in the military and is trying to become the first female president of South Korea, but at the same time could help rally conservative voters around the conservative party candidate. For his part, Mr. Moon could try to use the provocations to rally liberal voters who oppose the conservatives’ hard line and prefer a more aggressive engagement with North Korea as the best realistic means of taming its behaviors.
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