4 Apr 2013, 1:25 pm - Source: AAP
Defence has made contingency plans to ensure the safety of Australians in South Korea, if the need arises.
(AAP) Defence has made contingency plans to ensure the safety of Australians in South Korea, if the need arises.
Defence has made contingency plans to ensure the safety of Australians in South Korea, if the need arises.
The announcement comes after a day of increasing tensions concerning North Korea. The rogue state earlier appeared to have moved a missile to its east coast, closer to Japan and South Korea.
In response The United States said it was sending ground-based missile interceptors to Guam
Defence Minister Stephen Smith told Sky News tonight that Australia has publicly and consistently told North Korea it should desist from its provocative statements about South Korea and its provocative action.
He says Australia has a small number of Defence personnel on the Korean Peninsula at the moment.
"We have a small number of personnel as part of the United Nations contingent," Mr Smith said.
"But there are very many Australians who regularly are in the Republic of Korea - in Seoul in South Korea - for tourist or for business purposes, and we have contingency plans to deal with their safety and security, and obviously that's done in conjunction with Korean, United States and UN authorities."
Mr Smith said Australia had seen this type of provocation from North Korea in the past and it had led either to exchanges of robust language or the occasional artillery exchange.
"But in terms of what our future involvement might be, we take that step by step."
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr will make a personal appeal for China to persuade North Korea to "ratchet down" its behaviour after the rogue nation threatened a nuclear strike against the United States.
Senator Carr, who will travel to China with Prime Minister Julia Gillard in the coming days, said the latest threats out of Pyongyang were "of great concern", adding that the restraint shown by South Korea could not continue "indefinitely".
"The focus of my concern is they will do something belligerent towards the south, or even launch another attack on the south, and the south has made it clear that they will respond,"
Senator Carr, who is in Indonesia for a series of high-level meetings, said on Thursday. "We would urge North Korea to take a step back, to ratchet down its rhetoric and its actions, to submit to a cooling off period," he said.
"We will talk to the Chinese as the one country that has any influence over the behaviour, over the conduct of North Korea, when I and the prime minister are talking with the new Chinese leadership in the coming days."
North Korea appears to have moved a medium range missile capable of hitting targets in South Korea and Japan to its east coast, the South's Yonhap news agency reports.
The movement was detected by both South Korean and US intelligence, Yonhap said, citing military and government sources.
"It appeared that the object was a Musudan mid-range missile," it quoted one South Korean official as saying on Thursday.
"We are closely monitoring whether the North moved it with a view to actual launch or just as a show of force against the US."
Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper also carried a similar report.
The Musudan missile was first unveiled at a military parade in October 2010 and is believed to have an intended range of around 3000km. However, it is not known to have been tested.
Yonhap cited intelligence sources as saying the North might launch the missile on April 15, the birth anniversary of founding leader Kim Il-Sung.
The South Korean Defence Ministry declined to confirm the report, but stressed that it kept a "24-hour watch" for any potential North Korean missile launches.
"We believe there is always an open possibility for a missile launch and related measures have been prepared," ministry spokesman Wi Yong-Seop told reporters without elaborating.
The United States said it was sending ground-based missile interceptors to Guam in response to North Korean threats to strike the Pacific island and other US targets.
A US territory that is home to 6000 American military personnel, submarines and bombers, Guam lies 3380km southeast of North Korea.
Earlier today US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told North Korea to ratchet its "dangerous rhetoric down."
North Korea's threats and recent actions represent a "real and clear danger" to the United States as well as its allies South Korea and Japan, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said.
"They have nuclear capacity now, they have missile delivery capacity now," Hagel said after giving a major strategy speech at the National Defense University, calling Pyongyang's "bellicose dangerous rhetoric" problematic.
"We take those threats seriously, we have to take those threats seriously," he added.
"We are doing everything we can, working with the Chinese and others to defuse that situation on the peninsula.
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