North Korea to launch three more spy satellites in 2024 — state media

In this undated photo provided Monday, Dec. 18, 2023, by the North Korean government, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, his daughter and an official watch what it says is an intercontinental ballistic missile launching from an undisclosed location in North Korea. | Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea plans to launch three more spy satellites in 2024 as part of efforts to ramp up the country’s military, state media reported Sunday.

“The task of launching three additional reconnaissance satellites in 2024 was declared” as one of the key policy decisions for next year at a year-end party meeting, the official KCNA news agency said.

Pyongyang successfully put a military spy satellite into orbit last month and has since claimed it was providing images of major US and South Korean military sites.

The five-day meeting, which ended Saturday, was attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

At the meeting, Kim said he would no longer seek reconciliation and reunification with South Korea, noting “a persisting uncontrollable crisis situation” on the peninsula, saying it was triggered by Seoul and Washington.

Inter-Korean relations are in a poor state as Seoul and Washington have ramped up defense cooperation this year in the face of a record-breaking series of weapons tests by Pyongyang.

“I believe that it is a mistake that we should no longer make to consider the people who declare us as the ‘main enemy’… as a counterpart for reconciliation and unification,” KCNA cited Kim as saying.

Kim ordered the drawing-up of measures for reorganizing departments handling cross-border affairs, to “fundamentally shift the direction.”

RELATED STORIES

North Korea denies its weapons were used by Hamas against Israel

North Korea claims it launched first spy satellite, promises more

North Korea’s space launch program and long-range missile projects