North Korea said Tuesday it will launch its first military spy satellite in June in a bid to monitor “dangerous” military activity by the United States and South Korea in real time.
The North disclosed the timing of its planned launch through state media, one day after it notified Japan of its plan to launch a satellite between May 31 and June 11.
In a statement carried by the Korean Central News Agency, Ri Pyong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Worker’s Party of Korea, said the North’s satellite reconnaissance is an “indispensable” act to bolster its self-defense capabilities against the enemies’ “reckless” military exercises.
The North’s spy satellite to be launched in June and various reconnaissance means to be newly tested are “indispensable to tracking, monitoring, discriminating, controlling and coping with in advance in real time the dangerous military acts” of the U.S. and South Korea, Ri said in the English-language statement.
He also vowed to “expand reconnaissance and information means and improve various defensive and offensive weapons and have the timetables for carrying out their development plans,” without elaborating on details.
Earlier this month, North Korea announced the completion of preparations to mount its first military spy satellite on a rocket, with the North’s leader Kim Jong-un approving the “future action plan.”
