South Korea's national Yonhap news agency quoted a military official in Seoul as saying North Korea had recently formed four to six missile battalions stationed in underground bases.

Furthermore, North Korea had also transformed large Japanese trucks into rocket launcher transporters and placed them near the border with South Korea, it said.

Pyongyang also hoped to complete within the year the development of its Taepodong-1 missiles with a range estimated at 2,000 to 2,500 kilometers (1,250 to 1,560 miles), it said.

South Korean officials declined to confirm the report.

North Korea agreed to freeze its long-range missile programme last year, sparking a thaw with the United States which in return promised to lift certain economic sanctions against the communist regime.

In subsequent talks, Washington has suggested the starving Stalinist state abandon the threat of weapons of mass destruction and renounce terrorism.

But North Korea has set tough conditions on its cooperation in the US campaign to defuse the world's last Cold War flashpoint.

MILSPACE
N.Korea, Iran Jointly Develop Chinese Missile Design
Tokyo (AFP) February 17, 2000 - North Korea and Iran are jointly developing an advanced version of a Chinese cruise missile sold to Tehran in the mid-1990s, a Japanese daily said Thursday.