North Korea's 1st military spy satellite launch in June: Top points

North Korea is set to launch its first military spy satellite in June aimed at tracking US military action on a real-time basis, Yonhap News Agency reported quoting a senior official in charge of the North's military affairs as saying. This comes after North Korea notified Japan about its plan of launching a satellite between May 31 and June 11.

Here are top points on North Korea's first military spy satellite launch:

1. Ri Pyong-Chol, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the governing Worker's Party of Korea (WPK), said that North Korea's scheduled satellite launch is an "indispensable" action to bolster war readiness.
2. The spy satellite will be launched in June and various other reconnaissance tools are currently being tested as well which are "indispensable to tracking, monitoring, discriminating, controlling and coping with in advance in real time the dangerous military acts" of the US and South Korea.
3. North Korea stated earlier that it had finished making the necessary preparations to launch its first military surveillance satellite.
4. Ri Pyong-Chol criticised the United States for stepping up its "hostile air espionage activities" after sending out high-profile military surveillance planes over the Yellow Sea recently.
5. “We will comprehensively consider the present and future threats and put into more thoroughgoing practice the activities for strengthening all-inclusive and practical war deterrents,” Ri said.
6. North Korea's planned satellite launch was "strongly" discouraged by South Korea.
7. Experts claimed that a spy satellite will enable the North Korea in staging a precise strike against targets in combat scenarios.