
Japan said on Monday that North Korea has informed it of a plan to launch a satellite by June 3, an apparent effort to put its second military spy satellite into orbit, The Associated Press reports.
The launch notification came as leaders of South Korea, Japan and China gathered in Seoul for their first trilateral meeting.
Japan’s coast guard said it has been notified by North Korea about its planned launch of a “satellite rocket,” with safety cautioning in the waters between the Korean Peninsula and China and east of the Philippine island of Luzon beginning Monday 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.
North Korea launched a satellite on May 31 of last year that ended up plunging into the sea. The North said the botched satellite launch had been the "gravest failure" and announced it will be preparing for another launch in the near future.
In November, North Korea sent its first military reconnaissance satellite into orbit as part of its efforts to build a space-based surveillance network to deal with what it calls US-led military threats.
The UN bans North Korea from conducting any satellite launches, viewing them as covers for testing its long-range missile technology. North Korea maintains it has the right to launch satellites and test missiles in the face of what it calls military threats posed by the United States and South Korea.
North Korea, which has tested dozens of missiles in the last year including its first intercontinental ballistic missiles since 2017, has recently upped the rhetoric.
In January, the country launched a hypersonic missile. In response, South Korea, the United States and Japan carried out joint naval drills in waters off southern Jeju Island.
North Korea then announced it had tested an "underwater nuclear weapon system" in response to the joint naval exercises.
Last month, North Korea successfully test-fired a new mid- to long-range solid-fuel hypersonic missile.