French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, speaking after talks with Annan, said any North Korean missile test must draw a "firm and just" international response.

China called for calm as tensions rose over reports that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea plans a long-range missile test.

"We hope that under the current circumstances, relevant parties can do more in the interest of regional stability and peace," said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu.

Information on the test preparation remained scant and contradictory Tuesday. Especially unclear is whether Pyongyang has completed injecting fuel into the missile - a move some experts consider irreversible and a clear sign the country intends to launch.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported Tuesday that US. satellite images suggest the North was still fueling its missile. And a US official in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Monday that US intelligence indicated North Korea had finished fueling.

However, Japan's Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Jinen Nagase said Tuesday that Japan could not confirm that fueling was complete. And South Korea's spy agency, the National Intelligence Service, believes North Korea hasn't finished because the 40 tanks seen around a launch site weren't enough to fuel a 65 ton missile, Yonhap news agency reported.

South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon said it appeared some rockets had been assembled, but the North's intentions were unclear. There were no reports of a launch by Tuesday evening, and the North is considered unlikely to launch at nighttime.

Ban agreed in a phone conversation with his Japanese counterpart, Taro Aso, to cooperate to prevent a North Korean launch, Japan's Foreign Ministry said Tuesday.

Amid the rising tensions, the United States staged war games near Guam in the western Pacific with 22,000 troops and three aircraft carriers.

The test fears have been especially high in Japan, a firm US ally with no diplomatic relations with Pyongyang. The two countries are at odds over the North's abduction of Japanese citizens, Pyongyang's nuclear weapons development and wartime grievances.

The North's previous test of a long-range missile shocked Japan and prompted it to accelerate work with Washington on a joint missile defense system.

Washington also kept up the pressure on Pyongyang. The US ambassador to South Korea conveyed the Bush administration's concerns to former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung, who plans to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Il next week.

Meanwhile, the North lashed out at the United States Tuesday for its missile defense plans, which it said would "touch off a space war in the long run," the North's Minju Joson newspaper wrote in a commentary, according to the country's Korean Central News Agency.

The US missile defense system is designed to shoot down long-range ballistic missiles mainly from North Korea but also potentially from Iran. It has been put in an operational, or ready-for-firing, status periodically over the past two years, but the status at any given point is classified secret.

There are nine missile interceptors in underground silos at Fort Greeley, Alaska, and two at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., linked by communications systems to a network of satellites and early-warning radars around the globe. The system has been tested numerous times but has never been used against an enemy missile.