WAR.WIRE
NKorea can't launch nuclear missile: Japanese official
 TOKYO, June 22 (AFP) Jun 22, 2006
 Japanese officials expressed doubt Thursday on whether North Korea could fire a nuclear warhead and said Tokyo's ships and planes were monitoring the communist state for a potential missile launch.

"It requires a certain level of technology to minimize the size of a nuclear warhead so as to build a missile that can be loaded with it. But we don't have information that North Korea has such technology," Senior Vice Foreign Minister Yasuhisa Shiozaki said in parliament.

"So far North Korea has not carried out any nuclear experiment," added Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the top government spokesman and well-known critic of Pyongyang.

Japanese defense chief Fukushiro Nukaga, however, declined to answer the same question, saying that his agency did not have detailed information on North Korea's technological development.

But he said Japan was keeping a close eye on developments.

"The Defense Agency has been dispatching ships and planes to do their utmost in collecting information so that the Japanese people will not have to worry about it," Nukaga said.

North Korea in 1998 fired a long-range Taepodong-1 missile over Japan into the Pacific Ocean and last year said it had nuclear weapons.

There have been a series of reports that North Korea is preparing to launch a Taepodong-2, believed to have a range of up to 6,700 kilometers (4,200 miles) -- enough to hit Alaska and possibly Hawaii.

Japan's National Police Agency is taking no chances and planning response measures if a warhead has nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, chief Iwao Uruma said.

"We are formulating measures to deal with the problem by preparing for the worse case scenario of a missile launch," Uruma told a news conference.

"It is possible that the warhead or fragments would fall on Japan," he said.

Uruma said police were developing plans to deploy special riot squads or to carry out rescue missions if the need arises.

US President George W. Bush warned North Korea on Wednesday to honor pledges not to test a missile but his administration ruled out direct talks as suggested by Pyongyang.

North Korea has boycotted six-nation nuclear disarmament talks, which include the United States and Japan, since November.

It wants the United States to lift economic sanctions imposed over the communist regime's alleged counterfeiting and money-laundering.