North claimed it spends $1.5 billion on a satellite launch, in a report written by Jeong Gang Chol from the North’s Economic Cooperation Council published on Tuesday.

The piece argues that profits from the Kaesong Industrial Complex (KIC) have been used to develop nuclear weapons and improve missile technology is an “embarrassing” distortion.

The report struck back at the South Korean government claims that revenue from the KIC was diverted to weapons programs, saying the time of the first satellite launch was conducted in 1998, two years before the opening of the KIC.

“Our underground nuclear test was conducted in October 2006,