TOKYO: North Korea has notified Japan of a planned satellite launch between midnight Sunday and midnight on June 3, the Japan Coast Guard said early Monday.

Tokyo is on high alert, with debris from the launch possibly falling in two locations in the Yellow Sea and one location in waters to the east of the Philippine island of Luzon.

Japanese Prime Minister KISHIDA Fumio, who is visiting Seoul, instructed his government to make thorough efforts to collect and analyze information, appropriately provide information to the public and make full preparations for unforeseen circumstances following Pyongyang’s notice.

He also instructed his government to work with the United States and South Korea to demand that North Korea cancel the launch.

In a three-way summit held Monday in the South Korean capital with Japan and China, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said that the international community must condemn such a move by North Korea, as the launch will go against U.N. Security Council resolutions.

Kishida said that Japan will “strongly urge” Pyongyang to abandon its launch plan.

Senior Japanese, U.S. and South Korean government officials in charge of North Korean affairs held phone discussions on the same day and agreed to call on Pyongyang not to carry out the launch using ballistic missile technology, which they described as “a clear violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions.”

A senior official from the South Korean presidential office said Sunday that the launch of a North Korean military reconnaissance satellite was imminent.

North Korea launched the Malligyong-1 spy satellite last November. The country said that it would launch three satellites this year, but has yet to do so.

JIJI Press