April 4 (Bloomberg) -- North Korea said it will launch a communications satellite “soon,” prompting South Korean President Lee Myung Bak to hold an emergency meeting of his top security and foreign-affairs ministers.

There was no launch today in the period 11:00 a.m. to 4 p.m. Pyongyang time that North Korea had specified as its window in a filing with international agencies. Kim Jong Il’s regime has said it will fire the rocket, suspected by South Korea of being a missile capable of reaching Alaska, between today and April 8.

The North’s official Korea Central News Agency said that what it calls a Kwangmyongsong-2 satellite will be sent into orbit “soon,” citing the Korean Committee of Space Technology. South Korea’s vice foreign minister, Kwon Jong Rak, said his government is discussing “diplomatic countermeasures.”

“North Korea needs to demonstrate it’s improving its missile technology,” said Hideshi Takesada, executive director of the National Institute for Defense Studies in Tokyo. “Kim Jong Il wants to demonstrate his power ahead of the April 9 meeting of the Supreme People’s Assembly, hold direct talks with the new U.S. administration and gain foreign currency by selling missiles to Iran and other countries.”

President Barack Obama urged North Korea yesterday to halt its “provocative” plan, and South Korea’s Lee said a launch by the North wouldn’t be to “their benefit.” Tensions between the nations, technically at war since their 1950-53 conflict, have increased since Lee took office last February with the promise of stricter monitoring of his neighbor.

Nuclear Test

North Korea tested a nuclear weapon in 2006 and has scrapped military and political agreements with the South and threatened “strong military steps” against what it regards as confrontation. The regime test-fired a long-range Taepodong-2 missile three months before the nuclear blast, prompting the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry has previously said the Taepodong-2 missile may have a range of at least 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles), putting Alaska within reach.

Talks involving the U.S., China, Japan and Russia on removing North Korea’s nuclear-weapons capability have stalled since December after the Stalinist state rejected demands that inspectors be allowed to remove samples from its Yongbyon reactor, the source of the regime’s weapons-grade plutonium.

South Korea, the U.S., and Japan have said any launch of a rocket, whether a missile or a satellite, would be discussed at the United Nations Security Council for possible new sanctions. Lee said yesterday South Korea wants the council to send “a very strong” message to the North.

Statement Retracted

Japan’s government mistakenly announced today that North Korea had launched the rocket just after noon local time, then retracted that statement within five minutes. The Prime Minister’s Office later attributed its gaffe to a “detection error.”

South Korea’s Unification Ministry, charged with dealing with inter-Korean matters, advised civic groups yesterday to stay away from the North, and the Defense Ministry began operating a 24-hour emergency shift in anticipation of the launch.

The timing of a launch may depend on weather conditions, Lee said yesterday. The Korean Meteorological Agency in Seoul said it will be cloudy this weekend over the North Korean launch site on the east coast, with winds as high as 22 miles per hour. Winds may slow tomorrow, the agency said.

Cameras, Radar

North Korea has set up three cameras around the site and a launch is imminent, South Korea’s Yonhap News reported today, without specifying where it had obtained the information.

Radar systems at the Musudan-ri site haven’t been switched on, indicating a launch isn’t imminent, the YTN cable news channel reported, citing government sources it didn’t identify.

Obama, speaking yesterday in Strasbourg, France, said the U.S. will work with other nations “to take appropriate steps -- to let North Korea know that it can’t threaten the safety and security of other countries with impunity.”

UN Resolution 1718, adopted in October 2006 after North Korea’s nuclear test, asks governments to prevent the sales of arms and equipment for nuclear work, as well as luxury goods, to Kim’s regime.

Revenge Vowed

North Korea’s military on April 2 vowed a “thunderbolt of revenge” if Japanese defense forces try to shoot down the rocket. North Korea will hit back against “any small move to shoot down our peaceful satellite launch,” the communist nation’s joint chiefs of staff said in a statement carried by the official news agency.

Japanese Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada on March 27 deployed guided-missile units in northern Japan where the rocket is expected to pass over and ordered the interception of any North Korean object entering his country’s airspace.

To contact the reporter on this story: Heejin Koo in Seoul at hjkoo@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: April 4, 2009 05:27 EDT