Global Courant
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s influential sister vowed again on Sunday to push for a second attempt to launch a spy satellite as she denounced a UN Security Council meeting over the first failed launch of the North.
The North’s attempt to launch its first military spy satellite into orbit last Wednesday failed when the missile crashed off the west coast of the Korean peninsula. At the request of the US, Japan and other countries, an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council continued to be called to discuss the launch, as it violated Council resolutions prohibiting the North from conducting any launch using ballistic technology. feed.
On Sunday, Kim’s sister and senior official from the ruling party, Kim Yo Jong, called the UN council “a political appendage” of the United States, saying the recent meeting had been called in response to America’s “gangster-like request”.
She accused the UN council of being “discriminatory and rude” for only questioning satellite launches in the North, when thousands of satellites launched by other countries are already operating in space. She said her country’s attempt to acquire a spy satellite is a legitimate move to respond to military threats from the US and its allies.
“(North Korea) will continue to take proactive measures to exercise all legal rights of a sovereign state, including those to launch a military reconnaissance satellite,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement issued by state media.
In her earlier statement Friday, Kim Yo Jong said the North’s spy satellite “will be properly launched into orbit in the near future,” but did not say when the second launch attempt would take place.
South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers on Wednesday that it will likely take “more than several weeks” for North Korea to discover the cause of the launch failure, but that it may soon attempt a second launch if the defects are not serious.
Washington, Seoul and others criticized the launch of the North satellite for raising international tensions and urged the North to resume talks.
A military surveillance satellite is on a list of advanced weapons systems that Kim Jong-un has promised to acquire amid ongoing security tensions with the United States. Since early 2022, Kim has conducted more than 100 missile tests in what he called a warning of extensive military exercises between the US and South Korea.
Experts say Kim would like to use his modernized arsenal to force concessions from Washington and its partners in future diplomacy.
North Korea has been hit with rounds of UN sanctions for its previous nuclear and missile tests and satellite launches. But the UN Security Council has not tightened those sanctions after North Korea’s recent testing activities because China and Russia, both permanent members of the UN council, blocked efforts by the US and others to do so. At the UN Council’s final session on Friday, China and Russia again clashed with the US over the North’s failed launch.
After repeated failures, North Korea launched Earth observation satellites into orbit in 2012 and 2016, but foreign experts say there is no evidence either satellite transmitted images and other data.
Also on Sunday, North Korea threatened not to give the International Maritime Organization advance notice of future satellite launches, in protest of the group’s condemnation of North Korean missile tests.
The IMO’s maritime safety committee on Wednesday passed a rare resolution condemning North Korea for carrying out launches without proper notification that “seriously threatened the safety of seafarers and international shipping”.
Kim Myong Chol, North Korea’s international affairs analyst, said in a statement released by state media: “In the future, IMO itself should know and take measures about the period of (North Korea’s) satellite launch and its carrier’s point of impact. and be prepared to take full responsibility for any consequences.”
Prior to the recent launch of spy satellites, North Korea told the IMO and Japan that a launch would take place between May 31 and June 11.
