North Korea Ends Advanced Notice of Satellite Launches

North Korean state-owned media announced moments ago that it will end advanced notice to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) concerning its satellite launches. In the last five launches, North Korea has given at least a 48 hour notice so that debris and the actual trajectory of the launch does not interfere with civilian or military traffic..North Korean Senior Official Kim Yo Jong told press that the IMO is a puppet of the U.S. and expressed his displeasure at a meeting of the UN Security Council which failed to agree on a statement or response concerning the launch, due to interference from Russia and China..The full statement from the North Korean government reads below:."On May 31, the 107th meeting of the International Maritime Organization Maritime Safety Committee, following the hostile policy of the US and its followers against the DPRK, the ROK's self-defensive defense strengthening measures were "violation of UN Security Council resolutions" and "international maritime safety." The "resolve" that was condemned as a "threat" was coercively adopted..The fabrication of the resolution condemning the missile launching activities of individual countries for the first time in the history of mechanism shows that the International Maritime Organization has abandoned its original mission of promoting international cooperation in the field of maritime safety and has become completely politicized..In particular, at the International Maritime Organization meeting on the same day that we launched the military reconnaissance satellite, the United States and its followers postponed discussions on all issues and played a game of forcibly adopting the anti-DPRK "resolution", thereby raising international criticism for our satellite launch. He openly showed his heart to try..The measures taken by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea to strengthen national defense capabilities are a thorough exercise of defense sovereignty in order to protect the safety of the state and people and safeguard peace and stability in the region from the increasingly reckless military hostile acts of the United States and its vassal forces..This is a legitimate right of a sovereign state, which is clearly regulated by the UN Charter and relevant international laws, and individual international organizations have no authority or qualification to challenge it..As for our missile-launching activities, our military has conducted missile test-launching exercises in the safest way, thoroughly considering the safety of regional countries, and has never actually harmed any country so far..Rather, if you look around the world, there are not a few cases where rockets or missiles launched by other countries, including the West, have crashed..Furthermore, in relation to the launch of the military reconnaissance satellite, we sent out a navigational alert to the Japan Maritime Security Agency, the regional coordinating agency, as prescribed by the organization, and, although not mandatory, we notified the International Maritime Organization of the launch period and the landing point of the debris of the carrier rocket in advance, although it is not mandatory..What is surprising is that the International Maritime Organization, having received prior notice from us, joked that it was not compulsory, then sat back and made a blatant insolence by talking about some kind of "violation of regulations"..I asked the agency, if debris from satellite carrier rockets launched by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea poses a threat to maritime safety, will the debris from rockets launched by the US or South Korea not fall into the sea but just float in the sky like cotton wool?.The International Maritime Organization's act of overstepping its powers, ignoring even simple and obvious scientific riches and invading the territory of a sovereign state's rightful defense authority, can only be seen as an act befitting a department within the White House rather than a specialized UN agency..If the International Maritime Organization continues to show unfair and prejudiced double standard behavior in its activities, as it is now, degenerating into the United States, it will inevitably lose the trust of the international community and even lose its existence as an organization whose mission is to ensure international maritime safety. It will be..The International Maritime Organization, which is undermining its international reputation as an authoritative specialized agency of the United Nations under the pressure of the United States' power and arbitrariness, should never again recklessly speak about the sovereign rights of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, even for the sake of preserving its own honor. ..As the International Maritime Organization responded by adopting an anti-DPRK "resolution" to our country's prior notice regarding the satellite launch, we will regard this as an expression of the organization's official position that our prior notice is no longer necessary..In the future, the International Maritime Organization will have to take measures on its own about the duration of the satellite launch and the point where the carrier will fail, and must be prepared to take full responsibility for all the consequences that result from it."