North Korean leader Kim Jong Un vowed to continue building spy satellites, calling it an “essential task,” state media said on Wednesday. His first comments after the nuclear-armed country’s latest attempt to enter orbit failed in a fireball.
“Possession of military reconnaissance satellites helps our nation further strengthen self-defense deterrence and protect national sovereignty and security against potential threats… resulting from U.S. military actions and various provocative acts,” the North’s official Korean Central News Agency quoted Kim as saying. “We are working on this as a prerequisite and essential task.”
Kim, who made the comments during a visit to the Academy of Defense Sciences on Tuesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the agency’s founding, also issued a rare admission of failure, saying the satellite-carrying missile had self-destructed “if due to an abnormality in the first stage motor.”
