The UN Security Council failed to agree on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila) on a statement condemning North Korea’s launch of a missile that landed near Japan after China sought to include language opposing the USA missile defense system in South Korea.
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South Korea and the USA have insisted that the THAAD deployment, scheduled by the end of 2017, only aims to counter North Korea’s advancing nuclear and missile threats.
The United Nations Security Council’s push to adopt a statement to denounce North Korea’s recent ballistic missile launches has fizzled out because China demanded the statement also include its opposition to the deployment of a USA anti-missile defense system in South Korea, a government source said Wednesday.
Kim, the star of the 2014 TV series “My Love From the Star”, agreed to feature in two new ads in China even as the country allegedly moved to boycott South Korean celebrities in protest of the decision to place a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery here.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has criticised a group of opposition lawmakers who left for China yesterday to discuss the deployment of an American anti-missile system that has opened a damaging rift between Seoul and Beijing. It is said to have insisted on including Beijing’s opposition to the deployment of U.S. anti-missile defence system, Thaad (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence), in the statement.
China had wanted the statement to say that a new ballistic missile interception base should not be deployed on the Korean Peninsula on the pretext of North Korea’s military provocations, according to the official and United Nations sources.
“Some politicians are making ridiculous claims that the deployment of Thaad will only offer good excuses for North Korea to stage more provocations – an argument that is very similar to the North’s own views”, she said in comments published on her official website.
According to South Korea, the deployment of the THAAD unit is mainly meant to counter the increasing missile threats from North Korea and was not done to aim China, but Beijing strongly sees it as a threat to destabilize regional security balance.
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The polarization at the Council may present a tough challenge for the permanent members, five in total, in adopting a new statement condemning North Korea’s test-firing of ballistic missiles last Wednesday, one of which landed in Japanese territorial waters.
