SEOUL, South Korea — North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly gotten his first glimpses of U.S. military installations on Guam as his brand new military spy satellite passed over the U.S. Pacific island on Wednesday.
The state-controlled Korean Central News Agency claimed that the Malligyong-1 reconnaissance satellite, launched late Tuesday, has already captured images of Andersen Air Force Base and Apra Harbor on the U.S. territory and transmitted them back to the satellite control center of the National Aerospace Technology Administration. U.S. and South Korean officials said it was too early to confirm whether the North Korean claims were true.
Mr. Kim hailed the launch, which came after two failed efforts by Pyongyang earlier this year, saying North Korea’s nuclear-armed forces now have “eyes looking a very long distance.”
The satellite will begin official operations on Dec. 1, KCNA reported. Mr. Kim, who was photographed with officials from the satellite program, said that he would launch more.
Despite uncertainties over the capabilities of the new satellite, South Korea did not wait long to respond, announcing Wednesday it had unilaterally canceled a key clause of an intra-Korean military agreement signed in 2018. President Yoon Suk Yeol, who is on a state visit to London, approved a motion to suspend parts of the agreement, which was struck during former President Donald Trump’s short-lived diplomatic outreach to Pyongyang in 2018.
South Korean officials also said their data appeared to back up the North’s claims that the spy satellite, North Korea’s first, had been successfully deployed.
“The first, second and third stage separations took place normally, and looking at the flight environment data, such as its speed and altitude, we are putting weight on it entering into orbit,” Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said in a radio interview.
But South Korea’s military Joint Chiefs of Staff said the craft was still being studied: “Determining whether the satellite is working properly will take time as additional analysis is required under coordination between South Korea and the United States and relevant agencies,” the military council said in a statement, according to the South Korean Yonhap News Agency.
North Korea is banned by U.N. Security Council Resolutions from owning ballistic missile technologies, such as those that lift satellites into orbit. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and his Group of Seven foreign minister partners excoriated the launch in a joint statement Wednesday and called for new sanctions against Pyongyang.
“This action poses a grave threat to the peace and stability of the region and beyond,” the statement read in part. “Any launch using ballistic missile technology, even if it is characterized as a military reconnaissance satellite, constitutes a clear, flagrant violation of relevant United Nations Security Council Resolutions.”
South Korea’s decision to suspend parts of the agreement on surveillance flights is likely to anger North Korea. The 2018 agreement created buffer and no-fly zones along border, and Seoul and Pyongyang also agreed to halt front-line aerial reconnaissance and live-fire exercises. Some guard posts and land mines at border areas were also removed.
The deal was praised at the time by some security officials, but critics said it undercut one of the key advantages of South Korean and U.S. forces — their clear aerial superiority over North Korea. Close air reconnaissance of the area is expected to resume imminently.
South Korea’s Mr. Shin, who visited a U.S. Navy carrier strike group that docked in Busan on Wednesday, also announced South Korea will hold new bilateral maritime drills with the U.S. as well as trilateral exercises including Japan.
• Andrew Salmon can be reached at asalmon@washingtontimes.com.
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