SEOUL, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Amid the heightened military tensions on the Korean Peninsula, a senior official of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) stated the country's firm stance on bolstering up its self-defense capabilities, the country's state news agency reported Tuesday, in response to the recent anti-DPRK military moves by the United States and South Korea.
In his Monday statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency on Tuesday, Ri Pyong Chol, vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Workers' Party of Korea, stressed the concerning security environment in the region, owing to the dangerous military acts by the U.S. and other hostile forces. It warranted a sense of necessity and urgency "for the DPRK to secure as the most pressing task a reliable reconnaissance means capable of gathering information about the military acts of the enemy in real time."
He also noted that the DPRK's military reconnaissance satellite No. 1 slated to be launched in June, and a variety of other reconnaissance means pending tests, as "indispensable" to tracking, monitoring, identifying in real time, and coping in advance with dangerous military acts of the enemy forces, as well as to strengthening the military preparedness of the armed forces of the DPRK.
The official criticized the "combined joint fire annihilation drill" launched by the United States and South Korea in Phochon, Kyonggi Province of South Korea, adjacent to the Military Demarcation Line separating the two Koreas. He added that the United States had recently conducted hostile air espionage activities on the Korean Peninsula and in its vicinity on an unprecedented level by mobilizing various air reconnaissance means deployed in the Asia-Pacific theater.
South Korea on Monday "strongly" warned against the DPRK's planned satellite launch, warning that Pyongyang will pay "due prices" if it carries out the plan, according to Yonhap news agency. ■
