(Seoul) North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has ruled out any “reconciliation” with South Korea, and the ruling party announced the launch of three new spy satellites in 2024, the official KCNA agency reported on Sunday .
The Workers’ Party of Korea, in power in Pyongyang, held a five-day plenary meeting of its Central Committee, an end-of-year high mass during which the country’s strategic directions are decided.
“The task of launching three additional reconnaissance satellites in 2024 was declared” during the meeting, which ended on Saturday, KCNA said.
KCNA PHOTO, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
The Workers’ Party of Korea held a five-day plenary meeting of its Central Committee.
After two successive failures in May and June, North Korea successfully put its first military observation satellite into orbit in November. The regime has since claimed it provided images of key US and South Korean military sites, but has not shown the images it says it has.
North Korea is barred by successive rounds of UN resolutions from conducting tests using ballistic technology, and analysts say there is significant technological overlap between space launch capabilities and ballistic missile development .
Help from Russia
South Korean intelligence services believe that Pyongyang received decisive technological help from Russia, where Kim Jong-un visited in September and met with President Vladimir Putin, to successfully put this satellite, the ” Malligyong-1.”
According to experts, putting an operational spy satellite into orbit would optimize North Korea’s quest for intelligence, particularly on its rival in the South, by having access to crucial data in the run-up to a military conflict.
During the party meeting, Kim Jong-un said the Korean Peninsula was in the grip of “a persistent and uncontrollable crisis situation”, which he said was the fault of the United States and South Korea.
He therefore ordered a reshuffle of the administrations managing relations with the South in order to “fundamentally change direction”.
“I think it’s a mistake we should no longer make to consider people who call us the ‘worst enemy’ […] as someone with whom to seek reconciliation and unification,” Kim Jong-un said, as quoted by KCNA.
The two Koreas began a process of rapprochement in 2018, characterized by three meetings between Kim Jong-un and the South Korean president at the time, Moon Jae-in. But this rapprochement was shattered and tensions between the two enemies are currently at their height.
“Confrontational maneuvers”
At the start of the party meeting, the North Korean leader had already called for “accelerating war preparations” of his country, including its nuclear weapons program, in the face of “confrontational maneuvers” by the United States and their allies.
North Korea conducted a record number of ballistic missile tests in 2023. It also engraved in its constitution its status as a nuclear power, and successfully tested the Hwasong-18, the most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in its arsenal, capable of reaching the United States.
PHOTO KCNA, VIA REUTERS
Kim Jong-un during the launch of the Hwasong-18 missile on December 18.
For their part, the United States, South Korea and Japan have intensified their military cooperation, activating a real-time data sharing system on North Korean missile launches and increasing joint military maneuvers in the region.
The American armed forces have notably sent to South Korea in recent months the nuclear-powered submarine USS Missouri, the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan and a B-52 strategic bomber, each time provoking the anger of North Korea .
Pyongyang sees the military maneuvers on its doorstep as a rehearsal for a future invasion of its territory, and has long viewed its missile tests as necessary “countermeasures.”