North Korean leader Kim Jong Un moved closer to ticking another box on his wish list Monday, with state-run media saying the country had conducted “an important test” for developing a military reconnaissance satellite, a day after a missile launch was detected from the country.
At a rare ruling party congress in January last year, Kim announced a number of goals for further improving his impoverished country’s military as part of a five-year plan. The unusually detailed list of weapons capabilities included the development of military reconnaissance satellites “in the near future.”
In a short dispatch Monday, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency did not say what type of rocket had been tested Sunday, but Japan and South Korea said it had been an apparent ballistic missile fired from the Sunan area of Pyongyang.