North Korea is still working on preparations for a medium-range ballistic missile launch, South Korea’s presidential office said Monday, denying a news report that the communist nation halted such preparations.

For weeks, North Korea showed signs of preparing to fire the missile, known as “Musudan,” which is believed to be capable of reaching as far as the U.S territory of Guam, in what outside experts suspect as an attempt at demonstrating its capability to launch nuclear missiles.

Pyongyang had widely been expected to fire the missile around the April 15 birthday of Kim Il-sung, the country’s late founding leader and grandfather of current leader Kim Jong-un. But no such firing happened, raising speculation that the country might have decided against a launch. (Yonhap News)