Science & Technology

Pyongyang says it will soon launch satellite into orbit

Seoul, June 1 (EFE).- North Korea said Thursday it would soon succeed in launching a reconnaissance satellite into orbit, a day after a failed attempt, and lashed out at the United States and countries that have protested this plan.

“(North Korea)’s reconnaissance satellite will be successfully put into space orbit in the near future and start its mission,” Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of the North Korean leader, said in a statement from state news agency KCNA.

Kim criticized countries that have protested Pyongyang’s plans to put such a satellite into orbit, especially the US, which it accused of acting like “a group of gangsters” that would accuse the regime of “illegal and threatening,” even if it tried to launch the satellite “via a balloon.”

“If (North Korea)’s satellite launch is to be particularly censored, the US and all countries that have already launched thousands of satellites should be denounced,” she added.

She said it’s “far-fetched logic” that her country is only censured and accused of violating UN Security Council resolutions for the use of ballistic rocket technology regardless of its purpose, “even though other countries are doing it.”

Kim said she recommended that nations review the United Nations Charter and provisions of the international organization’s space treaty “before baselessly rejecting and scolding a sovereign state for its satellite launch and its right to spatial development.”

She said this behavior is a sign that “the enemies” of her country “fear” that Pyongyang has access to better means of reconnaissance and information, and that this only reinforces his position to devote “greater efforts to the development” of those means.

The North Korean, who currently serves as deputy department director of the Central Committee of the national single party, said North Korea has no interest in dialogue with the US given its “hostile policy” toward the regime.

Thursday’s statement was published a day after Pyongyang unsuccessfully launched a space rocket with a satellite.

A technical failure in the transporter vehicle’s engines caused the device’s detachment process to fail and it crashed into the Yellow Sea, west of the Korean peninsula.

It marked the sixth launch of a satellite by North Korea, which has apparently only managed to put two devices into orbit (in 2012 and 2016), although none of them have ever shown signs of being operational.

The international community considered in each of these cases that the North Korean regime was trying to covertly test ballistic missile technology. EFE

asb/lds

Related Articles

Back to top button