North Korea warns to deploy troops on South Korea border, vows more satellite launches

North Korea issued a warning Monday saying that it will deploy new weapons and reinforce its armed forces along the border with South Korea as officials in Seoul claimed that Russia had helped Pyongyang carry out a satellite launch. North Korea’s foreign ministry said the launch of a reconnaissance satellite last week was prompted by the need to monitor the United States and its allies, state media KCNA reported. “It is a legal and just way to exercise its right to defend itself and thoroughly respond to and precisely monitor the serious military action by the U.S. and its followers,” the KCNA report said. Nuclear-armed North Korea launched the satellite on Tuesday, saying it successfully entered orbit and was transmitting photographs, but South Korean defence officials and analysts said its capabilities have not been independently verified. The launch was North Korea’s first known weapons firing in more than two months. It followed South Korea’s announcement earlier Wednesday that it decided to partially suspend an inter-Korean agreement and resume flying surveillance aircraft along the border in reaction to the North’s satellite launch. North Korea Thursday lambasted the South Korean move, saying it’ll deploy more powerful and new weapons at the border in a tit-for-tat measure. South Korea, the U.S. and Japan have strongly condemned the North’s satellite launch on Tuesday night because they believe it was meant to improve the country’s missile technology as well as establish a space-based surveillance system. U.N. Security Council resolutions prohibit any satellite liftoffs by North Korea, viewing them as covers for testing its long-range missile technology. The North says it has a sovereign right to launch satellites. Citing South Korean military officials, Yonhap news reported that North Korean soldiers had been observed bringing back heavy weapons into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border and setting up guard posts that the two countries demolished in the wake of the de-escalation agreement. South Korea estimates the North had about 160 guard posts along the DMZ and the South had 60. Each side demolished 11 of them after the military deal was signed in 2018. A South Korean defence ministry spokesperson declined to confirm the report. Yonhap reported that heavily armed North Korean soldiers had been spotted restoring damaged guard posts in several locations since Friday, citing photographs from cameras in the DMZ. The United States had called an unscheduled meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday to discuss the North’s satellite launch. On Nov. 22, nine members of the Security Council joined the United States in a statement condemning the North’s satellite launch for using ballistic missile technology, calling it a violation of multiple Security Council resolutions. North Korea’s foreign ministry said the statement only showed how dysfunctional the Security Council had become, with some member states blindly following the United States in issuing meaningless statements. Two of the veto-wielding permanent members, China and Russia, have refused to join in any new Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang despite its continued testing of increasingly powerful ballistic missiles. They did not join in the most recent statement last week. With inputs from agencies.