KCNA announced Tuesday that North Korea will launch its first military surveillance satellite in June to monitor U.S. military activity.
Ri Pyong Chol, vice-chairman of the Workers’ Party’s Central Military Commission, called US-South Korean military exercises “reckless ambition for aggression” in a statement broadcast by KCNA.
U.S. and South Korean forces held their largest joint live-fire exercises last week after scaling back drills because of COVID-19 limits and hopes for North Korean diplomacy.
Ri stated that the drills required Pyongyang to have “means capable of gathering information about the military acts of the enemy in real time.”
“We will comprehensively consider the present and future threats and put into more thoroughgoing practice the activities for strengthening all-inclusive and practical war deterrents,” Ri added.
Nuclear-armed Kim Jong Un has cleared final preparations for the launch of North Korea’s first military spy satellite.
North Korea informed Japan of the launch between May 31 and June 11, leading Tokyo to activate its ballistic missile defenses.
Japan has pledged to shoot down any incoming missile.
“(North Korea’s) satellite launches incorporate technology that is almost identical and compatible with those used for ballistic missiles, and regardless of the designation used by North Korea, we believe that the one planned for this time also uses ballistic missile technology,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said on Tuesday.
On Monday, a State Department official said any North Korean launch using ballistic missile technology, including to launch a satellite, would violate UN resolutions.
The North has launched many missiles and weapons tests, including a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile last month.
North Korea’s wartime surveillance will enhance with the satellite, analysts say.
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