North Korea on Monday announced plans to launch a rocket apparently carrying its second military spy satellite by early next week, drawing quick, strong rebukes from neighbors South Korea and Japan. The notification of the planned launch, banned under UN resolutions, came as South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Seoul for their first trilateral meeting in more than four years.
Japan’s coast guard said it was notified by North Korea about its planned launch of a “satellite rocket,” with safety cautioned in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and China and east of the Philippine island of Luzon beginning Monday and running through midnight June 3. North Korea gives Japan its launch information because Japan’s coast guard coordinates and distributes maritime safety information in East Asia.
