ICAO’s Council is to condemn North Korean interference to satellite-based navigation systems, as well as its continuing unannounced missile launches, at the upcoming ICAO Assembly – although the finger-wagging is unlikely to sway the renegade nation from its activities.
While the Council lists records of interference dating back to 2011, it highlights “ongoing” issues since early October last year within South Korea’s Incheon flight information region.
Analysis of a four-month period to mid-February this year found more than 4,400 aircraft from 100 airlines had reported unreliable navigation signals to South Korean air traffic control.
The analysis, conducted by the South Korean ministry of science and information and communication technology, determined that the interference affected the L1 and L2 navigation signals from the GPS constellation.
While the Council sent a letter about the situation to the North Korean civil aviation minister in May, querying the government’s plans to comply with the Chicago Convention, a 30-day response deadline passed with no reply.
The Council subsequently “reiterated its grave concern” about the situation in mid-June, and is reporting the matter to the Assembly as an infraction of the Chicago Convention.
Its draft resolution says the Assembly “deplores” and “condemns” the North Korean interference which, it adds, is “jeopardising the safety and security of international civil aviation”.
The Council is also set to update the Assembly over North Korea’s persistence in carrying out unannounced missile launches – a matter which was the subject of a formal resolution, at the previous Assembly in 2022, demanding that such potentially hazardous activity cease.
It points out that, despite the resolution, “several launches” had taken place in the three years since.
North Korean representatives are adopting a tough stance in response to the satellite interference and missile concerns. In a statement submitted to the Assembly, they express indignation over a perceived “politicisation and double standard emerging within ICAO”.
The statement accuses “some” ICAO member countries of being “hostile” to North Korea, and forming a “front…under the pretext of implementing the Convention and ensuring aviation safety”.
North Korea points out that South Korean authorities infiltrated its airspace with military drones in October last year, in order to drop leaflets near Pyongyang airport – but that this has been treated within ICAO as a military issue, outside of the Chicago Convention.
It argues that, if the “same logic is to be applied”, its missile test launches are also “military scope”.
“Such inconsistent acts of double standards are openly committed by several member states of the ICAO Council where the present and future of international civil aviation is decided,” it says.
