North Korean leader Kim Jong Un received photos of the White House, Pentagon and U.S. aircraft carriers in the naval base of Norfolk, taken by its recently launched spy satellite, state media KCNA said on Tuesday.

North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un meets with members of the Non-Standing Satellite Launch Preparation Committee.

North Korea last week successfully launched its first reconnaissance satellite, which it has said was designed to monitor U.S. and South Korean military movements.

The photos were the latest in a series of images of what KCNA described as "major target regions" sent by the satellite, including the South Korean capital of Seoul and U.S. military bases.

Kim also inspected satellite photos of the Andersen Air Force Base in the U.S. Western Pacific territory of Guam and a U.S. shipyard and airbase in Norfolk and Newport, where a total of four nuclear-powered air carriers and a British air carrier were spotted, KCNA said.

The United States and South Korea have condemned the satellite launch as a violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions banning any use of ballistic technology.

Seoul officials have said the North's satellite capabilities could not be verified as it has not released the photos.

North Korea vows more satellite launches, beefs up military on border.

North Korea warned on Monday it would continue to exercise its sovereign rights, including through satellite launches, while its troops were reported to be restoring some demolished guard posts on the border with South Korea.

North Korea's foreign ministry said the launch of a reconnaissance satellite last week was prompted by the need to monitor the United States and its allies, state media KCNA reported.

"It is a legal and just way to exercise its right to defend itself and thoroughly respond to and precisely monitor the serious military action by the U.S. and its followers," the KCNA report said.

Nuclear-armed North Korea launched the satellite on Tuesday, saying it successfully entered orbit and was transmitting photographs, but South Korean defence officials and analysts said its capabilities have not been independently verified.

The launch prompted South Korea to suspend a key clause in a 2018 inter-Korean military agreement and resume aerial surveillance near the border.

North Korea in turn declared it was no longer bound by the agreement and would deploy weapons on the border with the South.

South Korea's defence ministry said North Korean soldiers had been observed bringing back heavy weapons into the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) border and setting up guard posts that the two countries demolished under the agreement.

South Korea estimates the North had about 160 guard posts along the DMZ and the South had 60. Each side demolished 11 of them after the military deal signed in 2018 aimed at de-escalating tension and prevent accident military clashes.

Armed North Korean soldiers had been spotted restoring damaged guard posts in several locations since Friday, South Korea's defence ministry said, citing photographs from cameras in the DMZ.

They were also setting up what appeared to be a recoilless rifle - a portable anti-vehicle weapon or light artillery piece - at a fortification, it said, also citing a photograph.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un again visited the control centre of the space agency in Pyongyang on Monday morning and viewed fresh satellite photos of the United States' Anderson Air Force base in Guam and other places including Rome, KCNA reported.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol was briefed on the latest North Korean activities and ordered military readiness, his office said.

The United States had called an unscheduled meeting of the U.N. Security Council on Monday to discuss the North's satellite launch.

On Nov. 22, nine members of the Security Council joined the United States in a statement condemning the North's satellite launch for using ballistic missile technology, calling it a violation of multiple Security Council resolutions.

North Korea's foreign ministry said the statement only showed how dysfunctional the Security Council had become, with some member states blindly following the United States in issuing meaningless statements.

Two of the veto-wielding permanent members, China and Russia, have refused to join in any new Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang despite its continued testing of increasingly powerful ballistic missiles.

They did not join in the most recent statement last week.

N.Korea tells UN that satellite launch was self-defense.

North Korea told the UN Security Council on Monday that its launch of a spy satellite was legitimate self-defense, rejecting denunciations led by the United States.

Western powers, Japan and South Korea said North Korea violated Security Council resolutions by launching last week's satellite, which the totalitarian state said has already provided images of major US and South Korea military sites.

In a rare appearance at the Security Council, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, Kim Song, complained that other countries faced no restrictions on satellites.

"No other nation in the world is in the security environment as critical as the DPRK," said Kim, using the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"One belligerent party, the United States, is threatening us with a nuclear weapon," he said.

"It is a legitimate right for the DPRK as another belligerent party to develop, test, manufacture and possess weapons systems equivalent to those that the United States possesses or is developing."

He mocked US charges that satellite technology also helped North Korea hone its missile capacity, questioning whether the United States put satellites into orbit "with a catapult."

The US ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, rejected North Korea's assertion it was acting in self-defense and said that joint US-South Korean exercises were "routine" and "defensive in nature."

"We intentionally reduce risk and pursue transparency by announcing the exercises in advance including the dates and the activities, unlike the DPRK," she said, adding that the drills did not violate Security Council resolutions.

South Korea's spy agency said that Russia, eager for assistance in Ukraine, helped North Korea on the satellite following a summit between Kim and President Vladimir Putin.

The United States said last month that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 containers of military equipment and munitions to Russia.

Russia and China, North Korea's main ally, have put forward a resolution, opposed by the United States, to ease sanctions on Pyongyang as part of an effort to encourage dialogue.

Chinese envoy Geng Shuang accused the United States of "further aggravating tension and confrontation" through its military alliance with South Korea.

"If the DPRK constantly feels threatened, and its legitimate security concerns remain unresolved, the peninsula will not be able to get out of the security dilemma and only be caught in a vicious cycle of tit-for-tat aggressive moves," he said.