South Korea is on alert after a Russian lawmaker warned that Pyongyang is preparing to launch a long-range missile around the party's anniversary in North Korea.
On Oct. 8, 1997, 20 years ago, Kim Jong Il was elected as general secretary of the Workers' Party of Korea and North Korea mostly carries out a missile test on important anniversaries.
Russian lawmaker Anton Morosov visited North Korea recently and claimed that Kim Jong un is planning to test-fire a missile that could hit the US West Coast.
"They even gave us mathematical calculations that they believe prove that their missile can hit the west coast of the United States," Russia Today quoted a member of the Russian parliament's international affairs committee, as saying.
The government is closely monitoring the situation, given the possibility of North Korea's provocations around the party's anniversary," a presidential official was quoted by the Yonhap news agency, as saying.
This Sunday marks Kim Jong-il's ascent to general secretary and its ruling party's founding falls on Tuesday, the agency said.
"If the North makes another provocation, Seoul will sternly respond to it," the official said, adding no signs had been detected so far.
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