North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister blasted claims by foreign experts that spy satellite images were of too poor quality for surveillance, calling it "dog barking" and "rubbish".
At the same time as rejecting the doubts over her country's military, Kim Yo-jong threatened a full-range intercontinental ballistic missile test.
North Korea has claimed to have launched a test satellite for the development of its first military spy satellite, and tested a solid-fuelled motor to be used on a more mobile intercontinental ballistic missile in the past several days.
The North Korea leader's sister Kim Yo-jong used a slew of derisive terms — such as “malicious disparaging,” “rubbish” and “dog barking” — when she dismissed the outside assessments that cast doubt on North Korea’s spy satellite development.
North Korea had said its rocket launches last Sunday were tests of systems for its first military reconnaissance satellite and released two low-resolution photos of South Korean cities as viewed from space.
But some civilian experts in South Korea and elsewhere said the photos were too crude for a surveillance purpose and that the launches were likely a cover for North Korea’s missile technology. South Korea’s military maintained North Korea fired two medium-range ballistic missiles.
Kim Yo-jong said the test satellite carried a commercial camera because there was no reason to use an expensive, high-resolution camera for a single-shot test. She said North Korea used two old missiles as space launch vehicles.
“Didn’t they think their assessments are too inadequate and imprudent as they commented on our satellite development capability and related preparations only with two photos that we’ve published in our newspaper,” Kim Yo-jong, she told state media.
A spy satellite was among several high-tech weapons systems that Kim Jong-un has vowed to acquire to better cope with what he called US hostility.
Other weapons Kim wants to build are multi-warhead missiles, solid-fuelled long-range missiles, underwater-launched nuclear missiles, nuclear-powered submarines and hypersonic missiles.
Some experts believe North Korea would eventually use such modern weapons systems and an enlarged nuclear arsenal to pressure the US to win sanctions relief and other concessions.
Kim’s sister dismissed the South Korean government’s assessment that North Korea still has key remaining technological hurdles to overcome for functioning ICBMs that can reach the US mainland — such as the ability to protect its warheads from the harsh conditions of atmospheric re-entry.
“I think it’s better for them to stop talking nonsense, behave carefully and think twice,” she said.
All of North Korea’s ICBM tests have been performed at a steep angle to avoid neighbouring countries and some experts have said without the standard-trajectory launch of ICBMs, the reliability of North Korean weapons cannot be guaranteed.
Responding to those claims, Kim Yo-jong suggested North Korea might fire an ICBM at a normal trajectory, a launch that would be a much bigger provocation to the US as the weapon would fly towards the Pacific Ocean.
“I can clear up their doubt about it. They will immediately recognize it in case we launch an ICBM in the way of real angle firing straight off,” Kim Yo-jong said.
Kim, whose official title is a vice department director at the Central Committee of the Workers’ Party, is considered as the North’s most influential official after her brother, according to South Korea’s spy service.
Lim Soosuk, a spokesperson at the South Korean Foreign Ministry, called her threats of a standard-trajectory ICBM launch “very regrettable.” He told reporters that North Korea’s nuclear ambitions would only deepen its international isolation and worsen its residents’ economic difficulties.
