(LEAD) S. Korean military under political attack over N.K. missile info

(ATTN: ADDS conservative party's response in last 6 paras)
By Lee Chi-dong

SEOUL, March 23 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's defense ministry came under fire Thursday for its alleged failure to disclose information promptly on North Korea's missile launch the previous day, which apparently ended in failure.

The news on the secretive communist nation's missile firing was first released by a Japanese news outlet. Kyodo news service, quoting an unnamed government source, reported late Wednesday morning that the North seemed to have tested "several missiles" probably from its east cost. It cited the possibility of a failure in the test launch.

Reporters working in the press room of South Korea's defense ministry in Seoul area rushed to contact military officials to verify Kyodo's report, to no avail.

It took more than half an hour for the ministry to send a one-sentence text message to reporters reading, "South Korea and the U.S. are aware of the related matter and North Korea's missile is presumed to have not been fired normally."

Fifteen minutes after that, the ministry dispatched another message that the North fired one missile from a site near its air base in Wonsan "this morning" and it is believed to have ended in a failure.

It said a further analysis of details including the type of the projectile was underway.

Nearly simultaneously, the U.S. Pacific Command emailed a statement to Yonhap News Agency providing more information.

"A missile appears to have exploded within seconds of launch," it said, adding the activity was detected at 7:49 a.m. (Seoul time).

Ministry officials refuted the claim.

"The information sharing system between South Korea and the U.S. is operating normally," the ministry's spokesman Moon Sang-gyun said at a press briefing.

The allies are still in the process of analyzing details of the North's latest missile launch, which takes "considerable" time as it was a failure, he added.

The liberal Democratic Party on Thursday launched political attacks on the military for its belated response to the crucial national security incident.

"The military's failure to detect North Korea's firing of a missile shows the height of its incompetency in national defense," stated Rep. Yun Ho-jung, a top policy coordinator at the party.

He said the party will thoroughly investigate the issue through a standing committee on national defense. His party is seen as the favorite to win the presidential election slated for May 9, according to opinion polls.

On the other hand, the main conservative party voiced the importance of stronger national defense itself in the face of North Korea's military threats.

"North Korea's behavior has not changed at all. Security threats on the Korean Peninsula are being maximized due to its missile and nuclear tests," said In Myung-jin, the caretaker of the Liberty Korea Party, which was the ruling bloc under the Park Geun-hye administration.

Park was ousted earlier this month amid an abuse-of-power and corruption scandal.

He did not directly mention a dispute over the defense ministry's response to the North's missile launch a day earlier.

He instead cited the North's torpedo attack on a South Korean warship, the Cheonan, in 2010 that killed 46 sailors. The South will commemorate the seventh anniversary of their sacrifice Sunday.

He stressed his party would not sit idle against any move that puts the country's security in danger.

lcd@yna.co.kr
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