The United States stressed it would not accept the North as a nuclear-armed state and warned that more atomic tests could spark an arms race in East Asia.

"A train carrying a long-range missile has been spotted at the weapons research centre near Pyongyang," South Korea's Yonhap news agency quoted an intelligence source as saying.

The source said it may be a modified version of a Taepodong-2, which the North tested in 2006 and in April and which is theoretically capable of reaching Alaska.

"It usually takes about two months to set up a launch pad, but the process could be done in as little as two weeks, which means the North could launch a long-range missile as early as mid-June," the source said.

Yonhap quoted a presidential official as saying the North may schedule a launch to coincide with a June 16 summit between South Korean President Lee Mying-Bak and US President Barack Obama in Washington.

Two defence officials in Washington told AFP US satellite photos had shown vehicle activity at two launch sites, one in the west and one in the east.

Diplomats at the United Nations Security Council are discussing a new resolution which could impose new sanctions to punish the North for Monday's nuclear test -- its second since 2006.

In a telephone conversation Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso agreed "that one has to seriously respond (to the tests), which represent a challenge to international security," a Kremlin statement said.

Pyongyang says it will take "additional self-defence measures" in response to any sanctions.

The North has further fuelled tensions in the past week by launching six short-range missiles, renouncing the armistice that ended the Korean War in 1953 and threatening possible attacks on South Korea.

Analysts believe ailing leader Kim Jong-Il is trying to bolster his authority with the test to prepare for an eventual succession.

Meetings were held in five provinces to hail the event, the country's official news agency reported.

Speakers stressed it "greatly encouraged the Korean people in their dynamic drive for effecting a new great revolutionary surge and dealt telling blows at the US imperialists and their followers keen to stifle the DPRK (North Korea)," it said.

Analysts believe the North is not interested in further disarmament negotiations unless it is accepted as a nuclear-armed state.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates insisted that will not happen.

"The policy of the United States has not changed. Our goal is complete and verifiable denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, and we will not accept North Korea as a nuclear state," he told a Singapore security conference.

"North Korea's nuclear programme and actions constitute a threat to regional peace and security," Gates said, adding they pose "the potential for some kind of an arms race here in this region."

Gates said Washington "will not stand idly by as North Korea builds the capability to wreak destruction on any target in Asia -- or on us," but stressed there was no immediate military threat to the United States.

South Korean and US forces on the peninsula are on heightened alert for any border clashes.

South Korean Defence Minister Lee Sang-Hee, who met Gates on the sidelines of the conference, said their patience with North Korea was running out.

"A strong response has been agreed on by the US and South Korea against any active military provocation," Lee said.

The North walked out of six-nation nuclear disarmament talks after the Security Council condemned its April 5 rocket launch and tightened existing sanctions.

The United States is sending two diplomats to consult the other nations who were negotiating with the North -- China, South Korea, Japan and Russia.

Stephen Bosworth, the special envoy on North Korea, and Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg will head Sunday to Tokyo and later visit China, South Korea and Russia, the State Department said.

Kim Jong-Il "is determined to go out with a bang and not a whimper," US analyst Marcus Noland wrote in The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi.

"Severely weakened by a stroke last year, the emaciated Kim has been frenetically delivering 'on-the-spot guidance,' as if to reassure himself and his country that he is still in control," Noland wrote.

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