No unusual N.Korean military activities after Seoul's rocket launch

South Korean military officials said on Monday that they have not detected any unusual North Korean military activities amid concerns Pyongyang could stage another show of force in response to Seoul's recent space rocket launch.
"The intelligence authorities of South Korea and the United States have been closely cooperating and keeping close tabs on the (North Korean military) movements," Yonhap News Agency quoted Col. Kim Jun-rak, the spokesperson of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as saying at a press briefing.

"But there have been no unusual movements," he added.

On October 21, South Korea fired off its first homegrown space launch vehicle, the KSLV-II, from the Naro Space Centre in the country's southern coastal village of Goheung.

The launch came as Pyongyang has called on Seoul and Washington to drop "double standards" in reference to the allies' characterisation of its missile activities as "provocations" while rationalising their own as deterrence.

As the North is banned from using ballistic missile technology under UN Security Council sanctions, long-range rocket launches under what it calls a "space development" initiative have long been a subject of international criticism - IANS