Japan plans missile test as North Korea fears grow

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is planning a ballistic missile defence test in cooperation with the United States in November, the Defence Ministry said on Monday, as fears rise over North Korea's plans to restore its main atomic complex.

North Korea's firing of a ballistic missile over Japan in 1998 spurred Japan to build a missile defence shield in cooperation with Washington, its most important ally.

Japanese navy personnel aboard the newly upgraded destroyer Chokai will use an SM-3 missile to try to shoot down a dummy ballistic missile in space over the Pacific near Hawaii, Japan's Defence Ministry said on Monday.

A similar test using the equipment supplied by Lockheed Martin Corp and Raytheon last December went smoothly.

The announcement comes days after Japan succeeded in using a PAC-3 land-based anti-ballistic missile interceptor to intercept a dummy missile at White Sands, New Mexico.

In another move underlining its alliance with Tokyo, the United States is to post a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier at the naval port of Yokosuka from this week.

Tokyo's concerns over the potential threat from Pyongyang have come to the fore again in recent weeks, after reports that North Korean leader Kim Jong-il had fallen sick, potentially destabilising the country.

On Monday, a senior diplomat said seals had been taken off North Korea's main nuclear plant at Yongbyong, after Pyongyang said last month it would re-start the complex, the basis of its atomic bomb programme.

North Korea was also reported this month to have conducted tests at a new missile launch facility in the west of the country.

(Reporting by Isabel Reynolds; Editing by Valerie Lee)