Kim Yo Jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un has accused the United States of “gangster-like” hypocrisy for criticizing her country’s failed launch of a military spy satellite and insisted a successful launch will be made soon.
Kim Yo Jong stated that North Korea’s efforts to acquire space-based reconnaissance capabilities were a legitimate exercise of its sovereign right and reiterated the country’s rejection of U.N. Security Council resolutions that bar it from conducting any launch involving ballistic missile technology.
Her remarks, made on state media, came a day after the rocket carrying the spy satellite crashed into the sea, resulting in the failure of the satellite launch. North Korea disclosed that the rocket lost thrust after a stage separation and crashed in waters off the Korean Peninsula’s western coast.
The launch was immediately denounced by U.S, South Korea and Japan. According to Adam Hodge, a Spokesperson at the U.S. National Security Council, Washington strongly condemns the North Korean launch because it used banned ballistic missile technology, raised tensions and risked destabilizing security in the region and beyond.
In her statement, Kim Yo Jong briefly mentioned Hodge’s comments before stating that the United States “is letting loose a hackneyed gibberish prompted by its brigandish and abnormal thinking.”
“If the DPRK’s satellite launch should be particularly censured, the U.S. and all other countries, which have already launched thousands of satellites, should be denounced. This is nothing but sophism of self-contradiction.”
Kim Yo Jong
DPRK is the initials of North Korea’s formal name; the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
She underscored how the United States closely monitors the North through its own reconnaissance satellites and other aerial assets, calling the Americans a “group of gangsters” who would deem it as “illegal and threatening” had North Korea attempted to send a satellite into space by balloon.
“The far-fetched logic that only the DPRK should not be allowed to do so according to the (U.N. Security Council’s) ‘resolution’ which bans the use of ballistic rocket technology irrespective of its purpose, though other countries are doing so, is clearly a gangster-like and wrong one of seriously violating the DPRK’s right to use space and illegally oppressing it.”
“It is certain that the DPRK’s military reconnaissance satellite will be correctly put on space orbit in the near future and start its mission.”
Kim Yo Jong
North Korea Not Interested In Negotiations With U.S
Kim stressed that Pyongyang has no intention to resume talks with Washington, which have stalled since 2019 due to differences over crippling U.S.-led sanctions imposed over the North’s nuclear weapons and missile program. She cited what she called U.S. hostility toward the North as the reason.
The spy satellite launch on Wednesday, May 31, 2023, heightened a provocative run in North Korean military demonstrations, including the test-firings of around 100 missiles since the start of 2022 that underscored Kim Jong Un’s attempts to acquire dual ability to conduct nuclear strikes on both the U.S. mainland and South Korea.
Wednesday’s failed launch raised security concerns in South Korea and Japan.
Lee Sung Joon, Spokesperson of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a briefing on Thursday, June 1, 2023, that the country’s navy has mobilized more vessels and aircraft in search of additional debris to recover and analyze.
The International Maritime Organization’s maritime safety committee adopted a rare resolution on Wednesday, May 31, 2023, which condemns North Korea for conducting launches without proper notification, which have “seriously threatened the safety of seafarers and international shipping.”
Japan’s coast guard, which coordinates and distributes navigational warnings in the region, was not notified by North Korea until Monday, May 29, 2023, although such warnings should be made no less than five days in advance.
The IMO stated that it “urgently calls upon (North Korea) to cease unlawful and unannounced ballistic missile launches across international shipping lanes.”
