North Korea fires short-range missile

By Lee Jin-woo

YEONPYEONG, South Korea (Reuters) - North Korea test-fired another short-range missile off its east coast on Friday and said it would take "self-defense measures" if the U.N. Security Council punished it for this week's nuclear test.

South Korea said an increasingly aggressive North may be preparing fresh provocations after Chinese fishing boats were spotted leaving a disputed sea border on the west coast.

Regional powers are waiting to see what the North might do next. Many speculate it may opt for a naval skirmish in the disputed waters, which should be getting crowded as the lucrative crab fishing season starts.

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said there had been no sign of stepped-up North Korean military activity.

"We have not seen ... any unusual troop movements by the North to accompany their rather aggressive language over the past few days," Morrell said in Singapore, where U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will attend a meeting on regional security over the weekend that is likely to address the Korean crisis.

But a U.S. defense official said the United States had observed "above average activity" in the past 24 hours at a site in North Korea that has previously been used to test fire long-range missiles.

"Exactly what it all means at the moment, it's hard to say," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

South Korea and the United States have raised the military alert level in the region after North Korea claimed it conducted a nuclear test on Monday, followed by missile launches and a threat of war.

Initial U.S. testing to determine whether the isolated state actually fired a nuclear device so far was inconclusive, said a U.S. official, who declined to be named.

"They did not find anything that could confirm a nuclear device was detonated," said the official, who added that more tests were being conducted and results could be known in a couple of days.

Earlier on Friday, the Vienna-based Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization said proof of whether Pyongyang had conducted it second nuclear test awaited findings of any radioactive particles and noble gases, expected next week at the earliest.

In New York, the United States and Japan circulated a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to key members, condemning the claimed nuclear test and demanding strict enforcement of sanctions imposed after the North's first atomic test in October 2006.

North Korea, in its first response to threatened sanctions, said it would take "self-defense measures" if it was punished.

It gave no details other than to say such a move would nullify the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War. It has previously said that truce was already dead.

South Korea's Yonhap agency quoted an unnamed government source as saying the North fired the short-range rocket from its Musudan-ri missile base around dusk, making it the fifth to be launched since the nuclear test. Most of the missiles are believed to have a range of around 130 km (80 miles).