The UN Security Council on Tuesday issued a strong condemnation of North Korea’s latest missile tests and threatened to take “further significant measures” against Pyongyang.
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US President Barack Obama warned North Korea on Tuesday that it was deepening its worldwide isolation following recent missile tests that were hailed by the reclusive state’s leader as “perfect”.
The issue has helped close the gap between China and its erstwhile client state, North Korea, after the provocations of a nuclear test and long-range missile launch earlier this year. The move drew swift condemnation from the US and other world leaders who will gather this month in NY for the United Nations General Assembly.
With each test, she said, the North demonstrates further advancement of its ballistic missile program whose aim according to the country’s leader Kim Jong Un is “to arm the systems with nuclear weapons”.
The president added that the USA was still open to dialogue with the North Korean government if it changed its course.
North Korea fired three missiles into the sea off its east coast as the leaders of the major G20 economies met in China on Monday. Regarding the plan to station a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on the peninsula, Obama stressed that “it is a purely defensive measure, stressing that Washington’s commitment to the defense of South Korea is unwavering”.
The council ordered the committee that oversees sanctions to intensify its work to enforce those measures and urged states to redouble their efforts to implement measures laid out in council resolutions.
Monday’s launches are the latest in a series of more than ten ballistic tests that North Korea has conducted during 2016 despite United Nations sanctions.
South Korea will also seek greater support from the USA and the global community to improve the human rights conditions in North Korea.
The UN Security Council on Tuesday condemned the recent ballistic missile launches conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
At their bilateral summit on Wednesday, President Park Geun-hye and her Japanese counterpart, Shinzo Abe, agreed that South Korea, Japan and the United States should more closely cooperate to jointly counter the North’s nuclear and missile threats, in an apparent reflection of the report’s recommendation.
Japanese envoy Koro Bessho said that “all member states” had condemned the launches during the talks as violating United Nations resolutions, which bar North Korea from any use of ballistic missile technology.
They traveled about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) and landed in the sea 200 to 250 km (120 to 160 miles) west of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern-most main island.
Although the attack range is calculated as being one half of the cruising range plus the missile range by taking into account the return trip, the North may decide not to consider a return trip.
Obama signaled the US would redouble its effort to choke off North Korea’s access to worldwide currency and technology by tightening loopholes in the current sanctions regime.
“The ICAO has sent a letter of warning to North Korea under the name of the chairman of its board”, Cho June-hyuck, spokesman at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in a regular briefing.
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But he added that Pyongyang’s current behaviour made that impossible.
