TOKYO: A North Korean official has said that a long-range missile launch is a sovereign "right" and would not breach previous international pledges against testing, a report said on Tuesday.    

 

A potential launch concerns "the right of autonomy of a country, which no one has the right to defame," Ri Pyong-Dok, a deputy chief-level researcher at the foreign ministry, told Japanese reporters visiting Pyongyang.   

 

A test "is not bound by any statement such as the Pyongyang Declaration and last September's joint statement at the six-way talks," Ri, who handles Japanese affairs, said.      

 

A series of reports have said the North is preparing to test-fire a Taepodong-2 missile with a range of up to 6,700 kilometres (4,200 miles), far enough to hit targets in Alaska and possibly Hawaii.             

 

Japan and the United States have warned of a response to any launch. But South Korea has cautioned there is no certainty the North is planning to conduct a test and the researcher also did not confirm launch preparations.          

 

Japan has repeatedly said a test would violate the joint declaration between Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il reached after a September 2002 summit.       

 

The Pyongyang Declaration said North Korea would "maintain the moratorium on missile launching." It has been interpreted as pertaining to long-range missiles because it followed a unilateral ban by North Korea imposed in 1999.            

 

That ban came a year after North Korea rattled its neighbors by test-firing a Taepodong-1 missile over Japan and into the Pacific. It has since carried out other tests but only of short-range missiles. But North Korea last year said it would not longer observe the moratorium and declared it had nuclear weapons.        

 

It signed a statement in September in six-nation talks pledging to give up its nuclear program in exchange for aid and security guarantees, but shunned negotiations soon afterward to protest US financial sanctions.