North Korea says it will launch 1st military spy satellite in June

A South and North Korean flag are hoisted in adjacent villages near the demilitarized zone in Paju, Gyeonggi, on Monday. [YONHAP]

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 notified Japan of its plan to launch a satellite between May 31 and June 11.

In a statement carried by North's official Korean Central News Agency, Ri Pyong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, 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 United States 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 specifying 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 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.

Yonhap