North Korea lashes out at critics, hints at more satellite launches

The US & nine other countries issued a joint statement criticizing N-Korea for launching a space booster using ballistic missile technology.

North Korea lashes out at critics, hints at more satellite launches. North Korea warned on Monday it would continue to exercise its sovereign rights, including satellite launches, state media KCNA reported, citing the foreign ministry.

The report on a statement from a foreign ministry official also criticized a joint statement released by the United States, South Korea and other countries aimed at its recent satellite launch.

“It is a legal and just way to exercise its right to defend itself and thoroughly respond to and precisely monitor the serious military action by the US and its followers,” the KCNA report said.

It also warned of consequences while discussing U.N. security resolutions aimed at the nuclear-armed state.

The United States and nine other countries issued a joint statement last week criticizing North Korea for launching a space booster using ballistic missile technology, calling it a violation of multiple Security Council resolutions.

Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer and astrophysicist at the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Reuters that US Space Force data had catalogued two new objects in an orbital plane consistent with the launch from North Korea at the time stated by Pyongyang.

“I conclude the objects are the spy satellite and the rocket upper stage,” he said.

What remains unconfirmed, however, is whether its payload, the reconnaissance satellite Malligyong-1, is operating, and whether the North received any outside help.