North Korea claims White House, Pentagon, Guam among US sites its spy satellite has photographed

On Monday it took “in detail” images of the White House and the Pentagon in Washington, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

Also on Monday, North Korea’s ambassador made a rare appearance at the UN Security Council to defend his country’s launch of the satellite.

“No other nation in the world is in the security environment as critical as the DPRK,” said Kim Song, using the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

“One belligerent party, the United States, is threatening us with a nuclear weapon,” he said.

North Korea claims success in launching first spy satellite after 3 attempts

“It is a legitimate right for the DPRK as another belligerent party to develop, test, manufacture and possess weapons systems equivalent to those that the United States possesses or is developing.”

The US ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, rejected North Korea’s assertion it was acting in self-defence and said that joint US-South Korean exercises were “routine” and “defensive in nature”.

“We intentionally reduce risk and pursue transparency by announcing the exercises in advance including the dates and the activities, unlike the DPRK,” she said, adding that the drills did not violate Security Council resolutions.

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North Korea claims to have successfully put its first spy satellite into orbit

North Korea claims to have successfully put its first spy satellite into orbit

North Korea had said the satellite would formally start its reconnaissance mission from December 1 after some fine tuning, but KCNA said on Tuesday: “the fine-tuning process of the satellite is being hastened to end one or two days earlier.”

There has been no confirmation from the outside world on whether the satellite is operational and North Korea has yet to release any of the images it claims to have taken.

US presses China on North Korea’s weapons supplies to Russia

The United States said last month that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

Russia and China, North Korea’s main ally, have put forward a resolution, opposed by the US, to ease sanctions on Pyongyang as part of an effort to encourage dialogue.

“If the DPRK constantly feels threatened, and its legitimate security concerns remain unresolved, the peninsula will not be able to get out of the security dilemma and only be caught in a vicious cycle of tit-for-tat aggressive moves,” he said.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse