North Korean missile test innocuous and not surprising, says Powell

US SECRETARY OF STATE Colin Powell downplayed the significance of a North Korean missile test yesterday, describing it as “fairly innocuous” and “not surprising.”

Speaking hours after the South Korean Defence Ministry announced that communist North Korea had fired an anti-ship missile into the Sea of Japan, Powell said US officials had heard signs that such a launch was impending and said it was “not surprising.”

“It seems to be a fairly innocuous kind of test,” he told reporters after attending the inauguration ceremony for new South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun. South Korean and US officials said the missile was apparently a small, short-range missile and not the long-range ballistic missile that are believed to have a range of Japan and beyond. The communist regime’s deputy leader yesterday tried to assure a summit of worried developing world leaders that Pyongyang is not developing nuclear weapons “at this stage.”

High-ranking delegates at a meeting of the 116-nation Non-Aligned Movement in Kuala Lumpur said they were puzzled by the timing and nature of the provocative test, which followed their calls for a negotiated end to the dispute.

Later, Kim Yong Nam told the conference that the North’s “nuclear activities at this stage would be confined only to the peaceful purposes,” despite its withdrawal from a nuclear arms-control treaty in January.

South Korea said it believed the missile was a small, conventional one, but summit participants were nevertheless taken aback. Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar of Malaysia, the non-aligned summit host, told a news conference that the test “is another addition to uncertainty. It will further aggravate the economic slowdown.”

China, North Korea’s chief ally and a summit observer, called for a restrained response.

“All the relevant sides should keep themselves restrained instead of conducting any provocative actions that will lead to conflicts at a higher level,” Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya said.

Charles Twining, Washington’s observer at the meeting, called the timing of the missile test “very strange.”

“It just makes it even clearer that something has to be done to persuade North Korea by diplomatic means to work with the international community,” he said.

Indonesia has attempted to mediate the crisis between Pyongyang, Washington and Seoul.

“The firing of the missile certainly complicates the problem,” Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said. “That’s not the words of dialogue. We’re puzzled.”