The Unification Ministry said Friday it will be on high alert during the Lunar New Year's holiday to monitor a possible launch of North Korea's long-range rocket.

North Korea has notified U.N. agencies that it will launch a satellite sometime between Feb. 8 and 25, widely seen as a covert test of ballistic missile technology. The first day of the North's launch window overlaps the holiday.

"The government will operate an emergency work system from Monday till Wednesday," Jeong Joon-hee, a ministry spokesman, told a regular press briefing.

Jeong said that the ministry is keeping in close contact with a South Korean office at a joint industrial park in North Korea's border city of Kaesong and local companies running factories there.

"The government will continue to take steps to ensure the safety of South Koreans at the Gaeseong Industrial Complex," he added.

South Korea has imposed an entry limit on its people to the factory zone in the North to secure the safety of South Koreans staying there following North Korea's nuclear test on Jan. 6. A total of 124 South Koreans are operating at the complex.

Meanwhile, Jeong said a top North Korean military official, thought to be behind the North's deadly attacks on South Korea in 2010, is almost certain to have been appointed as a key party official dealing with inter-Korean affairs.

Speculation is rampant that Gen. Kim Yong-chol, 70, who leads the North's reconnaissance bureau, is sure to have replaced Kim Yang-gon, who died in a car accident in December. Kim had served as the party secretary handling inter-Korean affairs, also doubling as the head of the United Front Department at the Workers' Party of Korea.

"North Korea has not officially confirmed it, but we see a high possibility of Gen. Kim's appointment," Jeong added.

At a joint meeting of the WPK's key committees held earlier this week, Kim was found to be seated second from North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's left, clad in a dark Mao-style suit, not in a military uniform, according to a photo carried by the Rodong Sinmun, North Korea's main newspaper. (Yonhap)