North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister vowed again Sunday to push for a second attempt at a spy satellite launch as she criticized a United Nations Security Council meeting over North Korea’s first failed launch.
North Korea’s attempt to put its first military spy satellite into orbit failed last Wednesday Its missile fell off the western coast of the Korean peninsula. An emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council was still convened at the request of the United States, Japan and other countries to discuss the launch because it violated council resolutions prohibiting the North from conducting any launches using ballistic technology.
On Sunday, Kim’s sister and a senior ruling party official, Kim Yo Jong, called the UN council a “political attaché” of the United States, saying its latest meeting was convened at America’s “gangster-like request”.
She accused the UN council of being “discriminatory and shameless” because it only deals with North Korea’s satellite launches while thousands of satellites already launched by other countries are in operation. She said that her country’s attempt to obtain a spy satellite is a legitimate step to respond to the military threats posed by the United States and its allies.
“(North Korea) will continue to take proactive measures to exercise all the legitimate rights of a sovereign state, including the right to launch a military reconnaissance satellite,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.
In an earlier statement on Friday, Kim Yo Jong said the North Korean spy satellite would be “properly placed in space orbit in the near future” but did not say when its 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 find out the cause of the failed launch but that it may attempt a second launch soon if the defects are not serious.
Washington, Seoul and others have criticized North Korea’s launch of a satellite for stoking international tensions and urged it to return to talks.
A military monitoring satellite is among a list of advanced weapons systems that Kim Jong Un has pledged to acquire amid long-running security tensions with the United States. Since the beginning of 2022, Kim has conducted more than 100 missile tests in what he described as a warning of expanded military exercises between the United States and South Korea.
Experts say Kim will want to use his arsenal of modern weaponry to extract concessions from Washington and its partners in future diplomacy.
The United Nations imposed sanctions on North Korea because of its previous nuclear and missile tests and satellite launches. But the UN Security Council failed to toughen those sanctions on North Korea’s recent testing activities because China and Russia, both permanent members of the UN council, blocked attempts by the US and others to do so. During the last session of the United Nations Council on FridayChina and Russia once again clashed with the United States over the failed launch of North Korea.
After repeated failures, North Korea put Earth-observing satellites into orbit in 2012 and 2016, but foreign experts say there is no evidence that satellite images and other data were transmitted.
North Korea also threatened Sunday not to notify the International Maritime Organization of future satellite launches in advance in protest of the group’s condemnation of North Korean missile tests.
The International Maritime Organization’s Committee on Maritime Safety on Wednesday adopted a rare resolution condemning North Korea for launching launches without proper notification that “seriously threaten the safety of seafarers and international shipping.”
“In the future, the IMO should know and take measures themselves during the period of (North Korea’s) satellite launch and its point of impact,” Kim Myong-chol, a North Korea international affairs analyst, said in a statement carried by state media. carrier and be prepared to take full responsibility for all the consequences thereof.”
Before the latest spy satellite launch, North Korea told the International Maritime Organization and Japan that the launch would happen between May 31 and June 11.
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