FILE - In this April 5, 2009 image made from KRT video, a rocket is lifted off from its launch pad in Musudan-ri, North Korea. North Korea may have the bomb, but it hasn't perfected ways to put one onto missiles to strike far-off adversaries like the United States. That's why Pyongyang's announcement that it will blast a satellite into orbit in April, 2012 is drawing so much attention: Washington says North Korea uses these launches as cover for testing missile systems for nuclear weapons that could target Alaska and beyond. (AP Photo/KRT via AP Video, File) NORTH KOREA OUT, TV OUT
FILE - In this April 5, 2009 image made from KRT video, a rocket is lifted off from its launch pad in Musudan-ri, North Korea. North Korea may have the bomb, but it hasn't perfected ways to put one onto missiles to strike far-off adversaries like the United States. That's why Pyongyang's announcement that it will blast a satellite into orbit in April, 2012 is drawing so much attention: Washington says North Korea uses these launches as cover for testing missile systems for nuclear weapons that could target Alaska and beyond. (AP Photo/KRT via AP Video, File) NORTH KOREA OUT, TV OUT
FIL - In this March 20, 2012 file satellite image taken and provided by GeoEye, a satellite launch pad in Tongchang-ri, Cholsan County, North Pyongan Province, North Korea, is shown. The Tongchang-ri site is about 35 miles (56 kilometers) from the Chinese border city of Dandong, across the Yalu River from North Korea. North Korea has moved a long-range rocket to its northwestern launch site in preparation for a launch next month, South Korean officials said Sunday March 25, 2012. North Korea says it will launch a satellite into space on a long-range rocket around the April 15 (AP Photo/GeoEye) MANDATORY CREDIT
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) ? North Korea has moved a rocket to a northwestern site in preparation for a launch next month, South Korean officials said Sunday, as Pyongyang pushes ahead with a plan that Washington calls a cover for testing long-range missiles.
President Barack Obama and South Korean President Lee Myung-bak urged North Korea to immediately stop its launch plans, warning in Seoul that they would deal sternly with any provocation. Obama said the move would jeopardize a deal in which the U.S. would ship food aid to the North in exchange for a nuclear freeze.
"Bad behavior will not be rewarded," Obama said in a joint news conference with Lee. "There had been a pattern, I think, for decades in which North Korea thought if they had acted provocatively, then somehow they would be bribed into ceasing and desisting acting provocatively."
Earlier Sunday, Obama made a symbolic visit to the tense, heavily armed border dividing the Koreas, six decades after the Korean War ended with a cease-fire that leaves the peninsula technically at war.
North Korea's launch preparations are expected to dominate high-level sideline discussions at an international nuclear security summit in Seoul set for Monday and Tuesday that Obama and other world leaders are attending. The launch preparations come as North Koreans and new leader Kim Jong Un mark 100 days since the death of Kim's father, Kim Jong Il.
In northwestern North Korea, the main body of a long-range rocket was transported to a building in the village of Tongchang-ri in North Phyongan province, South Korean Defense Ministry and Joint Chiefs of Staff officials said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with department rules. The officials provided no further details and cited the South Korean and U.S. militaries for the information.
The Tongchang-ri launch site is about 35 miles (50 kilometers) from the Chinese border city of Dandong, across the Yalu River from North Korea. Analysts describe it is a new, more sophisticated site that would allow the North to fire the rocket from the west coast to avoid sending it over other countries.
North Korea says it is planning to launch a satellite in a scientific endeavor. The launch is set for sometime around celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the April 15 birth of North Korea's late President Kim Il Sung, who was Kim Jong Il's father and the current leader's grandfather.
However, Lee said the launch violates "a U.S.-North Korea deal and is a provocative act that poses a threat to international peace and security."
Under the agreement settled last month between Washington and Pyongyang, considered a breakthrough at the time, the United States would ship food aid to the impoverished North in exchange for a moratorium on missile and nuclear tests.
Washington says North Korea's rocket launches are meant to test delivery systems for long-range missiles it hopes to mount with nuclear weapons that could target Alaska and beyond.
"President Obama and I agreed to continue to strengthen the Korea-U.S. combined defense posture and sternly deal with any provocation and threat by North Korea," Lee said.
Japan is preparing to deploy land- and sea-based interceptor missiles and is planning to issue an order to troops to shoot down the rocket if it is deemed a threat or violates Japanese airspace.
North Koreans, meanwhile, paid their respects to Kim Jong Il, with tens of thousands gathering in Pyongyang's central square.
Kim Jong Un presided over a memorial service and gun salute in Pyongyang as North Koreans across the country observed a noon moment of silence in Kim Jong Il's memory. Citizens and soldiers lined up in rows, bowing their heads before a large portrait of Kim Jong Il flanked with wreaths of white flowers.
The U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea's last long-range rocket launch in 2009. Pyongyang responded by abandoning six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and, weeks later, carrying out a nuclear test, its second.
Also Sunday, the South Korean president and New Zealand Prime Minister John Key urged North Korea to cancel its planned launch, calling it a serious threat to regional peace, according to Lee's office.
The nuclear summit follows up on one held two years ago in Washington and is meant to find ways to keep nuclear weapons and material from getting in the hands of terrorists.
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Associated Press writer Pak Won Il in Pyongyang, North Korea, and Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo contributed to this report.
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