This article was originally published by Radio Free Asia and is reprinted with permission.
North Korea’s space agency spotted a U.S. nuclear-powered submarine in South Korea, the North Korean leader’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, said, in what would be the first confirmation that the North has a functioning spy satellite.
Kim said the arrival of the submarine in South Korea’s Busan port demonstrated what she said was an “insane” U.S. strategy to impose its superiority on the world.
“The Aerospace Reconnaissance Agency, an independent intelligence agency directly under the head of state of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, has reported that it detected an abnormal object at a pier in Busan Port, South Korea, on the 23rd,” said Kim on Tuesday, cited by the state-run Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is North Korea’s official name.
“A nuclear submarine has appeared in the harbor where a U.S. aircraft carrier is moored,” said Kim. “This is a clear demonstration of the insane military-strategic prayer of the United States, which is preoccupied with deliberately demonstrating its ‘power superiority’ in the face of the world.”
The 7,800-ton USS Vermont submarine entered a major naval base in the South Korean city of Busan on Tuesday to replenish supplies and provide rest for crew members, South Korean media reported.
KCNA did not carry photographs supporting Kim’s assertion.
In November last year, North Korea successfully placed a spy satellite into orbit, and said it planned to launch three more such satellites in 2024. Its attempt to launch another satellite in May ended in failure.
In February, however, South Korea’s National Security Advisor Shin Won-sik, who was then defense minister, said that the North’s Malligyong-1 spy satellite appeared to be orbiting Earth without activity.
Kim said the submarine’s arrival was “proof that the U.S. ambition to often take up nuclear strategic assets, boast of its strength, increase its threat to the rival and enjoy its hegemonic privilege.,”
She vowed to “continuously and limitlessly” bolster the country’s nuclear war deterrent against “U.S. threats.”
“The DPRK’s nuclear war deterrent to cope with and contain various threats from outside is bound to be bolstered up both in quality and quantity continuously and limitlessly as the security of the state is constantly exposed to the U.S. nuclear threat and blackmail,” she said.
“The U.S. strategic assets will never find their resting place in the region of the Korean peninsula,” Kim said, adding that such nuclear-powered submarines could never be an “object of fear.”
Quad summit
Separately, North Korea’s foreign ministry spokesperson criticized the U.S. for “violating” the North’s sovereign rights and trying to justify its hostile policy by hosting the Quad summit.
After holding the fourth in-person summit in Wilmington, Delaware, the leaders of the United States, India, Japan and Australia on Saturday denounced North Korea’s “destabilizing” missile launches and its nuclear program, and reaffirmed their commitment to the “complete” denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
“QUAD, the end product of the U.S. Cold War mentality and policy of inter-camp confrontation, has become a dangerous factor that deepens mistrust and antagonism between countries in the Asia-Pacific region and provokes international instability,” the spokesperson said in a statement carried by the KCNA on Wednesday.
The North will never tolerate any hostile acts that encroach upon its national sovereign rights, security and interests and continue to make efforts to build a multipolar international order, the spokesperson added.
