Ministry says North has put more missiles into service

North Korea has operationally deployed an additional Rodong missile battalion, the Ministry of National Defense said yesterday, over a year after it said it had confirmed the deployment.
The Rodong missile has an estimated maximum range of 1,300 kilometers; from its deployed base, the missile is capable of reaching all of the Japanese islands with a payload of biological or chemical weapons. The missile was first tested in May 1993 at a site on North Korea’s east coast. It is not capable of carrying nuclear weapons, however.
Pyeongyang deployed the first military unit with the missiles in 1997; this is the first addition to that original deployment.
The ministry also said in a report on the Roh administration’s defense policy that Pyeongyang has moved its 170- and 240-millimeter long-range guns closer to the Demilitarized Zone, posing a greater threat to South Korea’s capital region. The North is also increasing its supply of small submarines and tanks, the ministry added.
A ministry official said South Korea and the United States had confirmed the new deployment in the first half of 2002, but had not released any information about it until now. The official said he could not disclose where the new deployment is located.
A missile unit in North Korea’s military generally has nine launch pads with four missiles each, defense experts said, concluding that about 30-40 additional missiles have been deployed. The first Rodong missile base, set up in 1997, is in Sino-ri, North Pyeongan province, in the west-central part of the country.
The Rodong is based on a Soviet design, the SCUD missile; the North first acquired SCUDs from Egypt in 1976 and began copying and improving them. The North is estimated to have about 600 SCUDs and 100 Rodongs in total. It is working on an even longer range missile, the Taepodong II, which experts said could have a range sufficient to reach targets in North America. It has also sold missiles to countries in the Middle East.

by Lee Young-jong