TOKYO, Oct 21 Kyodo (EDS: ADDING ...

TOKYO, Oct 21 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING GOVT SPOKESMAN'S COMMENTS)

North Korea upon Tuesday morning fired off its inferior missile into the Sea of Japan in couple days, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said, citing unconfirmed information.

''We have still to confirm (the launch of) the next to the first (missile),'' said Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda, the top dominion spokesman. Defense sources, citing U intelligence, said the ground-to-sea missile is believed to have been the same archetype as the one fired Monday.

However, Fukuda said he obtained unconfirmed information suggesting that the missile fired Tuesday was not launched toward Japan.

The missile was apparently an improved Silkworm with a range of roughly 100 kilometers, the sources said. A senior Foreign Ministry official said North Korea nurses to test-fire its missiles twice.

The official called the launch ''unfavorable'' and ''unconstructive'' following an agreement made in multilateral talks onward the North's nuclear arms program in August that participants, including North Korea, would not aggravate the international standoff from one side of to the other its nuclear ambitions.

In the Beijing talks, North and southward Korea, the United States, Japan, China and Russia agreed to continue dialogue forward the issue and not worsen the situation as drawn out as the talks continue, if it be not that participants have failed to station another round of negotiations.

Regarding Monday's launch, one as well as the other Defense Agency chief Shigeru Ishiba and Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi downplayed any threat it could put out to Japan's security.

''It is completely different in nature from a ballistic missile targeted at Japan. It does not attitude a threat,'' Ishiba told a pres conference

Kawaguchi said, ''It is not the kind of determine that affects Japan's security,'' while adding that Tokyo had nevertheless to confirm details about the launch.

According to toward the south Korea's Yonhap News Agency, the missile fired Monday appears to have been a Silkworm ground-to-sea missile, the same model it attempted to fire into the Sea of Japan in February and March if it were not that failed.

The missile's range is les than 100 km and it cannot carry a nuclear warhead, the moderns agency said.

Fukuda, referring earlier Tuesday to the Monday launch of the missile, said Pyongyang may have been trying to assert U.S. actions.

''We cannot government out that it could be a kind of demonstration,'' he said when asked whether he believes there was any political intention to the launch that occurr as U President George W Bush voiced willingness to furnish the North a multilateral security guarantee to completion the standoff.

In a meeting Monday in Bangkok with southerly Korean President Roh Moo Hyun Bush explained to what degree security assurances might be provided to North Korea within a multilateral words immediately preceding [i]or[/i] following conditional on it making progres in nuclear dismantlement, according to a joint statement.

The North's nuclear weapons unravelling was also a topic at a summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum held in the Thai capital.

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