Even as North Korea prepares to hold a major event this week, a senior official in South Korea has said that there are no signs that Pyongyang is preparing to launch a long range missile, according to Yahoo News.
North Korea is celebrating 70 years since the inception of the ruling party this week, and there had been speculation that the secretive state would launch a long range rocket as part of the celebrations.
"We don't see any signs of making preparations for an imminent launch such as the movement of a launch vehicle to the launch pad," the senior official in the Ministry of Unification told journalists in Seoul.
North Korea's state broadcaster, KCNA, had earlier this month worried many, when it carried an interview with the director of the communist country's aerospace development administration, according to The Diplomat. In the interview, the director had bragged that Pyongyang was developing what he called an "earth observation satellite", adding that this project was in its "final phases."
The U.S. and South Korea both view the North's tests with deep suspicion, saying that they are excuses to advance Pyongyang's ballistic missile capabilities.
Joel Wit, a U.S.-Korea affairs expert at John Hopkins University, also concurred with Seoul, the Straits Times reported. Wit tweeted on Monday morning that "There is no evidence to support a long-range rocket launch on Oct 10."
"There is no evidence to support a long-range rocket launch on Oct. 10." -Joel Wit #38NorthPress pic.twitter.com/I09MScTcel
— 38 North (@38NorthNK) October 5, 2015
"North Korea could be doing things at night that we cannot watch via satellite, but most government officials agree that there will not be a launch," added Wit, while speaking for 38 North, a website providing analysis of North Korean affairs and part of a program of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced Internationals Studies.
On Dec. 12, 2012, North Korea shocked the world by launching a Unha-3 rocket that carried a satellite into space successfully. The country has all along maintained that these tests are purely for scientific and civilian purposes.
