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North Korea says it plans to launch satellites to monitor U.S. and its allies
In coming years, the reconnaissance satellites will provide real-time information on military actions by other countries, state media reported leader Kim Jong Un as saying.
While inspecting North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration, Kim said “a lot” of military reconnaissance satellites would be put into sun-synchronous polar orbit in the period of a five-year plan announced last year, state news agency KCNA reported.
“He noted that the purpose of developing and operating the military reconnaissance satellite is to provide the armed forces of the DPRK with real-time information on military actions against it by the aggression troops of the U.S. imperialism and its vassal forces in South Korea, Japan and the Pacific,” the news agency said.
North Korea appears to be preparing to launch a reconnaissance satellite, which could prove as controversial as the nuclear-armed country’s weapons tests because they use the same banned ballistic missile technology, experts say.
North Korea says it conducted two tests of satellite systems on Feb. 27 and March 5. Authorities in South Korea, Japan and the United States says the tests involved launches of ballistic missiles.
The launches drew international condemnation and the U.S. military said on Thursday it had increased surveillance and reconnaissance collection in the Yellow Sea.
The United States also said it had heightened its ballistic missile defense readiness after a “significant increase” in North Korean missile tests.
Kim defended the satellite work as not only about gathering information but protecting North Korea’s sovereignty and national interests, exercising its legitimate rights to self-defense, and elevating national prestige, KCNA reported.
“He stressed that this urgent project for perfecting the country’s war preparedness capacity by improving our state’s war deterrent is the supreme revolutionary task, a political and military priority task to which our Party and government attach the most importance,” KCNA said
