North Korea defends satellite launch at UN as Kim Jong Un reviews images of White House

NEW YORK – North Korea’s ambassador made a rare appearance at the UN Security Council on Nov 27 to defend his country’s launch of a spy satellite, as leader Kim Jong Un studied images including of the White House and Pentagon.

Western powers, Japan and South Korea have said that North Korea violated Security Council resolutions by launching the satellite last week.

The totalitarian state has said that its new eye in the sky has already provided images of major US and South Korea military sites, as well as photos of the Italian capital Rome.

According to state-run KCNA news agency, on Nov 27, the satellite took “in detail” images of the White House and the Pentagon in Washington. The agency said Mr Kim was reviewing the photos.

The North Korean leader also counted some aircraft carriers at a military base and a shipyard in the neighbouring state of Virginia, the report said.

At the Security Council, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mr Kim Song, complained that other countries faced no restrictions on satellites.

“No other nation in the world is in the security environment as critical as the DPRK,” said Mr Kim Song.

DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea’s official name.

“One belligerent party, the United States, is threatening us with a nuclear weapon,” he said.

“It is a legitimate right for the DPRK as another belligerent party to develop, test, manufacture and possess weapons systems equivalent to those that the United States possesses or is developing.”

He mocked US charges that satellite technology also helped North Korea hone its missile capacity, questioning whether the United States put satellites into orbit “with a catapult”.

US ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield rejected North Korea’s assertion it was acting in self-defence and said that joint US-South Korean exercises were “routine” and “defensive in nature”.

“We intentionally reduce risk and pursue transparency by announcing the exercises in advance including the dates and the activities, unlike the DPRK,” she said, adding that the drills did not violate Security Council resolutions.

South Korea’s spy agency said that Russia, eager for assistance in Ukraine, helped North Korea on the satellite following a summit between Mr Kim and President Vladimir Putin.

The US said in October that North Korea had delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

Russia and China, North Korea’s main ally, have put forward a resolution, opposed by the US, to ease sanctions on Pyongyang as part of an effort to encourage dialogue.

Chinese envoy Geng Shuang accused the US of “further aggravating tension and confrontation” through its military alliance with South Korea.

“If the DPRK constantly feels threatened, and its legitimate security concerns remain unresolved, the peninsula will not be able to get out of the security dilemma and only be caught in a vicious cycle of tit-for-tat aggressive moves,” he said. AFP