The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed again Sunday to push for a second attempt to launch a spy satellite as she lambasted a UN Security Council meeting over the North’s first, failed launch.
The North’s attempt to put its first military spy satellite into orbit last Wednesday failed as its rocket crashed off the Korean Peninsula’s western coast. An emergency meeting of the UN Security Council was still convened at the request of the US, Japan and other countries to discuss the launch because it had violated council resolutions banning the North from performing any launch using ballistic technology.
On Sunday, Kim’s sister and senior ruling party official, Kim Yo Jong, called the UN council “a political appendage” of the United States, saying its recent meeting was convened following America's “gangster-like request.”
She accused the UN council of being “discriminative and rude” because it only takes issue with the North’s satellite launches while thousands of satellites launched by other countries are already operating in space. She said her country’s attempt to acquire a spy satellite is a legitimate step to respond to military threats posed by the US and its allies.
“(North Korea) will continue to take proactive measures to exercise all the lawful rights of a sovereign state, including the one to a military reconnaissance satellite launch,” Kim Yo Jong said in a statement carried by state media.
In her earlier statement Friday, Kim Yo Jong said the North’s spy satellite “will be correctly put on space orbit in the near future" but didn't say when its second launch attempt would take place.
South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Wednesday it will likely take “more than several weeks” for North Korea to learn the cause of the failed launch but it may attempt a second launch soon if defects aren’t serious.
Washington, Seoul and others criticized the North’s satellite launch for raising international tensions and urged it to return to talks.
