North Korea vowed Tuesday to go ahead with its planned rocket launch next month, defying successive warnings from global leaders attending the Nuclear Security Summit now under way in Seoul.

The North’s defiant stance, released through its foreign ministry, came after Pyongyang announced earlier this month it would launch a long-range rocket in mid-April to put a satellite into orbit as part of its “peaceful space program.”

North Korea “will not give up the satellite launch for peaceful purposes, which is a legitimate right of a sovereign state and a requirement essential for economic development,” the country’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said in comments carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. 

(Yonhap News)