North Korea plans to launch its first military spy satellite in June, and the planned launch is aimed at monitoring U.S. military activity in real time, a ranking official in charge of the North's military affairs said Tuesday.
The North disclosed the timing of its planned launch through state media, one day after it notifed Japan of its plan to launch a satellite between May 31 and June 11.
In a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency, Ri Pyong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Worker's Party of Korea (WPK), said the North's planned satellite launch is an "indispensable" act to strengthen war preparedness.
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."
A military reconnaissance satellite is among the high-tech weapons systems that the North's leader vowed to develop at a key party congress in 2021, along with a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile and a nuclear-powered submarine.
Ri condemned the U.S. and South Korea for raising military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, taking issue with the allies' largest-ever live-fire exercise, and the South's plan to host a multinational naval drill aimed at preventing the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction.
He also slammed the U.S. for intensifying its "hostile air espionage activities" with the recent dispatch of high-profile military spy aircraft over the Yellow Sea.
"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 said.
South Korea "strongly" warned against North Korea's planned satellite launch Monday, vowing to make Pyongyang pay "due prices" if it goes ahead with the launch.
The North's proposed satellite launch violates a series of United Nations Security Council resolutions banning its nuclear and missile programs, as it uses the same technology used in ballistic missiles.
Experts said a spy satellite will help the North stage a precision strike against targets in war situations, as it will enhance the country's surveillance capability, but many still raised doubts about the North's satellite capabilities.
In December last year, the secretive regime said it conducted an "important, final-stage" test for the development of a spy satellite and released black-and-white photos of South Korean cities that were shot by its "test satellite" from space. Outside experts said they are "too crude" to be satellite photos.
Source: Yonhap News Agency