News - Middle East: North Korea has warned the United States that any attack to disable its reconnaissance satellites will be a declaration of war, after a US space official hinted that Washington is capable of interrupting Pyongyang’s satellite operations.   

In a report on Saturday, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), citing a statement from North Korea’s defense ministry spokesperson, warned Washington that in case such an attack against its strategic assets was imminent, Pyongyang would mobilize its war deterrence.
“In case the US tries to violate the legitimate territory of a sovereign state by weaponizing the latest technologies illegally and unjustly, the DPRK (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) will consider taking responsive action measures for self-defense to undermine or destroy the viability of the US spy satellites,” the statement said.
The statement came just a day after Sheryll Klinkel, a strategic communicator at the US Space Command, told a media program in reference to North Korea’s spy satellite that “a variety of reversible and irreversible means” can be employed to “deny” an adversary’s space and counter-space capabilities.
“The US Space Force’s deplorable hostility toward the DPRK’s reconnaissance satellite can never be overlooked as it is just a challenge to the sovereignty of the DPRK, and more exactly, a declaration of war against it,” the KCNA stressed on Saturday.
On November 24, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the Pyongyang General Control Center of the National Aerospace Technology Administration (NATA) and observed new photos taken by the country’s recently-launched military spy satellite.
According to a report by the KCNA on November 25, the photos of “major target regions” included those of the South Korean capital of Seoul, cities in the South, like Mokpo, Gunsan, Pyeongtaek, and Osan that host American military bases as the satellite passed over the Korean Peninsula the previous day.
The satellite also took images of some areas within North Korea and parts of Hawaii, the report further said at the time.