South Korea yesterday partially suspended an inter-Korean agreement and restarted frontline aerial surveillance of North Korea after Pyongyang said it launched a military spy satellite, contravening UN bans, Seoul officials said.
The South Korean announcement came hours after the North said it had placed a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit in its third launch attempt this year.
The North’s claim had not been independently verified.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The Pentagon said it was still assessing the success of the launch, while Japan said that there had been no confirmation that the North Korean satellite entered orbit.
Nonetheless, the US and its allies still quickly condemned the launch, which they believe was meant to improve the country’s missile technology as well as establish a space-based surveillance system.
North Korea says it has sovereign, legitimate rights to launch spy satellites to cope with what it calls intensifying US-led threats.
UN Security Council resolutions still prohibit any satellite liftoff by North Korea, viewing them as covers for testing its long-range missile technology.
South Korean Deputy Minister for National Defense Policy Heo Tae-keun told a televised briefing that the North’s latest satellite launch was not only a clear violation of UN resolutions, but also “a grave provocation that threatens our national security.”
Heo said that South Korea would respond by partially suspending the 2018 inter-Korean tension-reduction agreement to resume aerial surveillance activities at the border.
He said the decision was approved at South Korea’s Cabinet Council meeting earlier yesterday.
Based on the solid military alliance with the US, South Korea would “promptly and strongly punish” North Korea if it uses the South Korean step as a pretext to launch another provocation, he said.
The 2018 agreement, struck during a short-lived era of reconciliation between the two Koreas, created buffer and no-fly zones along the countries’ heavily fortified border. Under the deal, the Koreas were required to halt frontline aerial reconnaissance of each other and live-firing exercises, and removed some of their guard posts and landmines at border areas.
The brief Korean rapprochement period evaporated soon after the collapse of broader nuclear diplomacy between North Korea and the US in 2019.
North Korea has since ramped up missile tests to modernize its weapons arsenal, prompting the US and South Korea to expand their defense exercises.
When the North’s National Aerospace Technology Administration announced what it called a successful launch of its Malligyong-1 spy satellite, it said the satellite would help improve its war readiness in the face of “the enemies’ dangerous military moves.”
The agency said North Korea would soon launch several more spy satellites to better monitor South Korea and other areas.
North Korea used the same satellite in its two failed launches in May and August.
South Korea’s military retrieved debris from the first launch and called the satellite too crude to perform military reconnaissance.
The North’s space agency said the Malligyong-1 satellite was placed in its orbit on Tuesday, about 12 minutes after it was launched aboard the new Chollima-1 carrier rocket.
However, the North’s neighbors said they had not confirmed whether the launch was successful.
“Our understanding is that so far there is no confirmation of a satellite placed into Earth’s orbit,” Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno said.
He still avoided calling the launch a failure, saying it would take “a fair amount of time” to verify the fate of the North’s launch.
“We’re still assessing the success of the launch,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said.
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