North Korea informs Japan of satellite launch plan by early next week

North Korea has revealed plans to launch a satellite by early next week, Japan said on Monday, an apparent effort to put the North’s second military spy satellite into orbit in yet another violation of UN bans. The launch notification came as leaders of South Korea, Japan and China gathered in Seoul for their first trilateral meeting on Monday.

Japan’s Coast Guard said it was notified by North Korea about its planned launch of a “satellite rocket”, with safety caution in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and China and east of the Philippine island of Luzon beginning on Monday and running through midnight June 3.

North Korea gives Japan its launch information because Japan’s coast guard coordinates and distributes maritime safety information in East Asia.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida instructed officials to cooperate with the US, South Korea and other countries to strongly request North Korea not to go ahead with the launch and to take the utmost measures in case of any contingency, his office said.

The launch plan likely refers to the North’s push to launch its second military spy satellite into space.

South Korea’s military said on Friday that it detected signs that North Korea was engaging in activities believed to be preparations to launch a spy satellite at its main Tongchangri launch facility in the northwest.

The UN bans North Korea from conducting any satellite launches, viewing them as cover for testing its long-range missile technology.

North Korea has steadfastly maintained it has the right to launch satellites and test missiles. It says spy satellites would allow it to better monitor the US and South Korea’s moves and enhance the precision-strike capability of its nuclear-capable missiles.

In phone talks, senior diplomats from Japan, South Korea and the US agreed to urge North Korea to cancel the launch, noting that any North Korean launch using ballistic technology would violate multiple UN Security Council resolutions.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry separately called a satellite launch by North Korea “a provocation that seriously threatens our and regional security.”

Last November, North Korea sent its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit as part of its efforts to build a space-based surveillance network to cope with what it calls increasing US-led military threats.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un later told a year-end governing party meeting that the country would launch three additional military spy satellites in 2024.

There is widespread doubt about how much militarily meaningful imagery the North Korean satellite can produce. But some civilian experts say the operation of several such satellites could still help North Korea monitor big targets among its rivals at all times.

According to North Korea’s latest launch notification to Japan, the danger zones where rocket debris would fall are the same places the country identified prior to its November launch.

That suggests North Korea would use the same first and second stages of the rocket as those in the previous launch, said Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at the Seoul-based Korea Research Institute for National Strategy.

Chang said the launch of three more spy satellites this year would allow North Korea to obtain imagery on sites in South Korea, Japan and the US Pacific territory of Guam more frequently.

Since 2022, North Korea has been engaged in a provocative run of missile tests to modernise and expand its weapons arsenals, prompting the US, South Korea and Japan to strengthen their security partnership in response.

Experts say North Korea likely believes an enlarged weapons arsenal would increase its leverage in future diplomacy with the US.

North Korea wasn’t among matters listed on the official agenda for Monday’s trilateral meeting between Kishida, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Chinese Premier Li Qiang.

But during a bilateral meeting with Li on Sunday, Yoon asked China, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, to contribute to promoting peace on the Korean Peninsula, while speaking about North Korea’s nuclear program and its deepening military ties with Russia, according to Yoon’s office.

South Korea, Japan and the US have long urged China — North Korea’s major ally and economic pipeline — to use its leverage to persuade the North to abandon its nuclear ambitions. But China is suspected of avoiding fully enforcing UN sanctions on North Korea and sending clandestine aid shipments to help its impoverished neighbour stay afloat.

On Sunday, North Korean Vice Defence Minister Kim Kang Il threatened to take unspecified “offensive action” in response to what he described as South Korean navy and coast guard ships violating the rivals’ disputed western sea boundary, which has been the scene of several bloody maritime skirmishes in recent years.

He also vowed to retaliate against South Korean activists flying anti-Pyongyang propaganda leaflets across the border.