Japan last year announced that its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) plan to create a military unit specializing in space matters by 2023.

The KCNA doubted the Asian neighbor's intention to build up its defense capacity in space.

"Japan still remains a war criminal state, a war force dreaming of overseas invasion which has made desperate efforts to whitewash and repeat its blood-stained and crime-woven past, before the international community," the KCNA said. "Worse still, all the moves of Japan are being rapidly directed to the realization of its wild dream of becoming a military giant and launching overseas invasion."

Experts here said North Korea's hostile reaction over Japan's military plan may come from the communist state's concern that Tokyo's upgraded space power could easily detect its missile tests and other military provocations. (Yonhap)