There has been speculation in the past two weeks that Pyongyang is preparing to test a long-range missile.

The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) made the claim on the 67th birthday of leader Kim Jong Il and as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was heading to Asia for meetings where the North's missile and nuclear programmes are expected to be a focus.

KCNA claimed the North has the right to 'space development' - a term the country has used in the past to disguise a missile test as a satellite launch.

It also accused the United States and other countries of trying to block the country's 'peaceful scientific research' by linking it to a missile test.

'One will come to know later what will be launched,' KCNA said, claiming that 'hostile forces spread the rumour about' the country's 'preparations for launching a long-distance missile'. When Pyongyang test-fired a long-range missile in 1998, it claimed to have put a satellite into orbit.

'It means they're going to fire a missile as a satellite launch,' Professor Kim Yong Hyun, of Seoul's Dongguk University, said of the KCNA report. He called the North's space programme claim a 'preventive' measure because a missile launch could result in punitive steps from the international community.

In Pyongyang, North Koreans celebrated their leader's birthday by viewing a special exhibition of Kimjongilia flowers set beside a replica of a missile, APTN North Korea footage showed. People also paid homage to his late father, North Korea's founder Kim Il Sung, and danced in the city's main square in freezing temperatures.

South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung Hwan warned the North that any launch - whether a missile or satellite - would be in violation of a United Nations Security Council resolution in 2006 that demanded Pyongyang 'suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme'.

'A missile and a satellite are the same in principle, and are different only in their payload,' he told lawmakers.

The KCNA report comes amid growing international pressure on Pyongyang to back out of apparent plans to carry out a test launch of a missile believed capable of reaching US territory.

Washington, Tokyo and Seoul have repeatedly urged the North not to fire a missile. Mrs Clinton, before leaving Washington for Asia, also urged Pyongyang not to take any provocative action.

North Korea has reportedly moved a long-range Taepodong-2 missile - its most advanced - to a launch site on the country's north-eastern coast. South Korean media have said a launch could come late this month.

Seoul's mass-circulation JoongAng Ilbo newspaper said yesterday that the North had moved all necessary equipment to fire a missile to the Musudan-ni site and that a launch could be ready earlier than expected. The daily cited unnamed government officials.

Analysts say North Korea's sabre-rattling appears to be an attempt to draw US President Barack Obama's attention, to start negotiations where it can extract concessions.

Pyongyang made a point yesterday of denying such a view, saying it 'has no need to draw anyone's attention'. North Korea has also been escalating tensions with the South, declaring all peace pacts with Seoul dead over the hardline stance that conservative South Korean President Lee Myung Bak has taken towards it.

ASSOCIATED PRESS