North Korea has reportedly launched a military spy satellite toward the South, the South Korean military said on Tuesday, after Pyongyang warned Japan of an impending launch, defying Seoul’s warnings and U.N. resolutions banning the country from using ballistic missile technology.
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“North Korea has reportedly launched a military surveillance satellite toward the South,” South Korea’s chiefs of staff said.
Japan, in turn, reported North Korea’s missile launch, which Prime Minister Fumio Kishida condemned with “the utmost firmness.” “We have already protested strongly against North Korea,” Mr. Kishida added from his office in Tokyo.
“At the moment we are waiting to find out if there was any damage. And even if they call it a satellite, launching something that uses ballistic missile technology is clearly a violation of United Nations resolutions,” the prime minister said.
“This is an important situation that affects the security of the Japanese people. We will continue to gather information and remain vigilant,” he continued.
When the launch was announced, the Japanese government briefly ordered residents of the Okinawa region in the southwest of the archipelago to seek shelter.
North Korea had already informed Japan on Wednesday of its intention to launch a satellite, possibly as early as Wednesday, in a third attempt after failing twice to put a military satellite into orbit last May and August, according to Tokyo.
Probably “countermeasures” from Seoul
North Korea in August designated three maritime areas likely to be affected by the then-planned launch: two in the Yellow Sea west of the Korean Peninsula and a third in waters east of the Philippines.
“The danger zones mentioned by North Korea this time correspond to those announced during its planned satellite launch in August,” a South Korean official commented to Yonhap News Agency.
Seoul has been warning for weeks that Pyongyang is in the “final stages” of preparations to launch a new spy satellite.
On Monday, South Korea’s military warned North Korea to “immediately” halt its preparations for such an operation and warned Pyongyang that it would take “necessary measures” if necessary.
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol could thus “suspend the September 19 military agreement,” Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, told AFP.
This agreement, reached in Pyongyang in 2018, aims to reduce military tensions along the highly secure inter-Korean border by creating maritime “buffer zones.”
Tests of medium- or long-range ballistic missiles in Seoul “cannot be ruled out,” Mr. Yang added.
American aircraft carrier
North Korea’s recent rapprochement with Russia worries the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan.
Seoul says Pyongyang is supplying weapons to Moscow in exchange for Russian space technologies.
In early November, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken denounced the “growing and dangerous” military ties between Pyongyang and Moscow after a visit to South Korea.
North Korea has carried out a record number of missile tests this year despite international sanctions and warnings from the United States, South Korea and their allies.
It also declared its status as a nuclear power “irreversible.”
Last week the company said it had successfully conducted ground tests of a “new type” of solid-fuel engines for its banned intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs).
In view of this situation, Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have increased their defense cooperation. On Tuesday, a US nuclear aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, arrived at the Busan naval base in South Korea.
This arrival was intended to strengthen allies’ “position in response to nuclear and missile threats from North Korea,” as part of a recent agreement aimed at improving the “regular visibility of American strategic assets,” the South Korean Navy stressed.