SEOUL - North Korea informed the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) on Tuesday about a satellite launch slated to take place between Wednesday and June 11, the organisation said.
The tip was a courtesy, not a requirement, IMO said, as navigational warnings are disseminated directly to shipping via the World-Wide Navigational Warning Service.
“DPRK sent an e-mail containing the information already disseminated” via the service, IMO said in an e-mail to Reuters, referring to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
IMO confirmed that North Korea sent a navigational warning to the Japan Coast Guard on Monday about its satellite launch, including the reserved launch date and falling area coordinates.
North Korea’s state media KCNA reported earlier on Tuesday that it will launch its first military reconnaissance satellite in June to monitor US activities.
Mr Ri Pyong Chol, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, denounced ongoing joint military exercises by the United States and South Korea as openly showing “reckless ambition for aggression”.
US and South Korean forces have carried out various training exercises in recent months, including the biggest-ever live-fire exercises last week, after many drills were scaled back amid Covid-19 restrictions and diplomatic efforts with North Korea.
Mr Ri said the drills required Pyongyang to have the “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,” Mr Ri said in the statement carried by KCNA.
Nuclear-armed North Korea has said it has completed development of its first military spy satellite, and that its leader Kim Jong Un has approved final preparations for the launch.
The planned launch has prompted Tokyo to put its ballistic missile defences on alert.
Japan has said it would shoot down any projectile that threatens its territory.
Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told a news conference on Tuesday: “Even if North Korea might call it a ‘satellite’, this is a violation of relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions that prohibit North Korea from all launches using the ballistic missile technology.”
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry also slammed the North’s use of ballistic missile technology as a clear violation of the UN sanctions, saying Mr Ri was making a “far-fetched excuse” to bolster its weapons programmes.
“It is nonsense to use our legitimate joint training and combined defence posture with the US, which were to respond to North Korea’s advanced nuclear and missile threats, as an excuse for launching a reconnaissance satellite,” ministry spokesman Lim Soo-suk told a briefing.
Mr Lim urged Pyongyang to drop its plan, and vowed to sternly respond to any launches.
A US State Department spokesman said on Monday that any North Korean launch using ballistic missile technology, including for a satellite, would violate United Nations resolutions.
The launch would be the North’s latest in a series of missile launches and weapons tests, including one of a new solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile in April.
Analysts say the satellite will improve North Korea’s surveillance capability, enabling it to strike targets more accurately in the event of war. REUTERS
