North Korea has claimed that South Korea is seeking to obstruct the North’s plan to launch a long-range rocket.
 
In a statement released on Monday, the Rodong Sinmun, the newspaper of the North’s ruling Workers’ Party, said the South is creating serious obstacles to improving inter-Korean ties.
 
The statement said the South will bring about irreversible catastrophe to South-North ties by engaging in what it called a global, anti-Communist confrontation against the North.
 
The paper said that peaceful space development is a legitimate right of a sovereign nation as recognized under international law, and is therefore not a matter for South Korean authorities to debate.
 
The daily also claimed that the North’s development of nuclear weapons is a self-defense measure aimed at addressing what it called the nuclear threats and hostile policies from the United States toward the North.
 
Similar claims were issued on Monday by a North Korean propaganda Web site, which said every country has the sovereign right to launch a satellite.