A representative for the United States Department of State told Yonhap News on Thursday that North Korea is prohibited from conducting missile tests due to previous UN sanctions, and that “Space launch vehicles (SLVs) incorporate technologies identical to, and interchangeable with, those used in ballistic missiles.”
“Any DPRK launch that uses ballistic missile technology, which would include SLVs, violates multiple UN Security Council resolutions,” the diplomat said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said this week that launching the country’s new surveillance satellite was a high military priority, and that it might happen as soon as the month’s end.
“Possession of such a satellite is a primary task to be indispensably fulfilled to bolster up the armed forces of the DPRK… and belongs to its sovereignty and legitimate right of self-defense,” Kim stated on Tuesday, as reported by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).
Soon after the North tested another new weapon, a solid-fuel ICBM called Hwasong-18, which authorities said would boost the DPRK’s nuclear counter-attack capabilities, the spy satellite was revealed.
Despite repeated calls from Washington for Pyongyang to stop its weapons tests, North Korea has staged a record number of missile launches in recent months, with officials there attributing the increase in activity to a “anti-DPRK military posture” on the part of the United States and South Korea. The North maintains the combined exercises constitute offensive practice, despite the United States’ insistence that they are defensive.
The head of US Forces Korea, General Paul LaCamera, told legislators on Thursday that “it is not a matter of ‘if’ DPRK will detonate another nuclear device but ‘when.'” This follows months of warnings from US authorities about an impending nuclear test by North Korea.
The North has not revealed intentions for such a test, and it continues to insist on its right to build its military arsenal to counter threats to its security, including nuclear weapons, despite the fact that previous testing were not published in advance.
