The US has forward deployed a specialist missile reconnaissance aircraft to Japan, apparently out of concern that North Korea is preparing to launch a rocket.
The US Air Force RC-135S aircraft – known as a Cobra Ball – arrived at Kadena Air Base in Okinawa on Saturday evening, the JoongAng newspaper reported on Monday. It flew to Japan from the Indian Ocean base of Diego Garcia after monitoring an anti-satellite missile test conducted by the Indian military.
The US Air Force operates three of the spy aircraft, which were rotated through the Kadena base in 2017, when North Korea tested more than a dozen missiles with varying ranges over a period of several months. The aircraft use radar, infrared and visible spectrum cameras to track ballistic missiles in flight.
The arrival of the aircraft in Japan comes just days after South Korea’s intelligence agency reported to members of parliament in Seoul that the North is close to completing work to renovate and restore its Sohae Satellite Launching Station.
Work to disassemble facilities at the site began in July 2018, just weeks after Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, met with President Donald Trump in Singapore.
US President Donald Trump meets with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Hanoi Credit: Leah Millis/Reuters
Moves to rebuild the launch facilities resumed in February – before the two leaders’ abortive talks in Hanoi in March – and are now close to completion.
Suh Hoon, the head of the National Intelligence Service, also informed the government in March that satellites have detected a sharp increase in heavy vehicles at the North’s fabrication facilities at Sanumdong, on the outskirts of Pyongyang, where its intercontinental ballistic missiles are made. There have also been other reports of increased rail traffic to the Sohae launch site in recent weeks.
Daniel Pinkston, a professor of international relations at the Seoul campus of Troy University, says North Korea will almost certainly claim that any launch is of a civilian-use rocket to put a satellite into orbit rather than a missile.
“Pyongyang has a space programme and they will again insist that they have a legitimate right to access outer space for peaceful means, although it is clear that this is dual-use technology and their space programme is heavily militarised”, he told The Telegraph.
“They will obtain data and be able to improve their designs, which is why any launch is in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions”, Professor Pinkston added.
The North Korean leader was clearly deeply disappointed by the refusal of President Trump to relax sanctions during their talks in Hanoi, Professor Pinkston said, with a rocket launch one of the few options available to the North to demonstrate its anger.
Any launch of a rocket or a missile will bring swift international condemnation, although Mr Kim will be hoping that China and Russia use their positions as permanent members of the UN Security Council to block calls for further sanctions if Pyongyang insists that it is merely exercising its right to the peaceful use of outer space.
April 15 marks the anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the man revered as the founder of the North Korean nation and the grandfather of the present leader, with any launch potentially timed to coincide with that important date on the North’s calendar.