According to a spokesman for the North Korean Ministry of Defence on Saturday, Pyongyang will interpret any interference with its recently launched satellite as a declaration of war and will act appropriately.
The announcement came after Sheryll Klinkel, the public affairs officer for the US Space Forces, responded to a query from Radio Free Asia regarding Washington’s capacity to thwart North Korea’s first spy satellite. The effectiveness and lethality of enemy forces across all domains could be decreased via joint force space operations, according to Klinkel, “by denying an adversary’s space and counterspace capabilities and services using a variety of reversible and irreversible means.”
An attack on a space asset belonging to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea would be considered a declaration of war against it, a spokesman for the country’s defence ministry warned.
In accordance with international accords on space exploration, Pyongyang calls its Malligyong-1 satellite “the territory of the DPRK, where its sovereignty is exercised.” According to the statement, this implies that any strike against the vessel will be viewed as an attack against North Korea.
The US spy satellites that are “countless and flying over the Korean peninsula region every day, exclusively tasked with monitoring the major strategic spots of the DPRK, should be deemed primary targets to be destroyed” if Malligyong-1 is interfered with, warning.
According to a spokesman for the defence ministry, “the US has [shown] its true colours as the chief culprit of evils, seeking to realise its wild ambition of dominating the world by turning outer space, the common wealth of humankind, into a theatre of war by openly unveiling its aggression scheme to mount a military attack on a space asset of another sovereign country.”
On November 21, North Korea launched Malligyong-1, a satellite that Pyongyang claims has already taken images of the Pentagon, the White House, and many US naval stations.
Washington denounced the launch from North Korea, claiming that it went against the worldwide embargo on Pyongyang’s ballistic missile capability. The US Treasury Department imposed new sanctions against North Korea on Thursday. These sanctions are aimed at foreign-based agents who the department claims are assisting North Korea in evading the limits.
South Korea, which has hitherto relied on the US to deploy its space assets, launched its first spy satellite manufactured domestically on Friday. It has been reported that the craft can detect objects as small as 30 centimetres across, or roughly one foot wide.
