North Korea denounced the U.N. Security Council for holding a meeting on its recent satellite launch upon "robbery demands" from the U.S., vowing to continue rejecting sanctions and taking "self-defensive" action, state media KCNA said Sunday. The U.S. called for a Security Council meeting last week to discuss North Korea's attempt to put its first spy satellite in orbit, which ended in failure with the booster and payload plunging into the sea. She said the satellite launch was a "legitimate, self-defensive countermeasure" against increasing threats from the U.S. and its allies, which Pyongyang has accused of rekindling tension with their annual springtime military drills. North Korea will never acknowledge U.N. sanctions resolutions "even if they slap them hundred, thousand times," she said, pledging to continue exercising its sovereign rights, including launching spy satellites. North Korea had informed the IMO of a time frame of its planned satellite launch, and the resolution strongly condemned the isolated country's missile tests "which seriously threatened the safety of seafarers and international shipping."

Source: The North Africa Journal June 04, 2023 00:19 UTC