Earlier this month, council member states’ efforts to produce a statement criticizing the North for a medium-range missile launch in July were scrapped due to China’s insistence that it include a denunciation of the deployment of the US -operated missile defense system in South Korea.
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The UN Security Councilstrongly condemned four North Korean ballistic missilelaunches in July and August, calling them “grave violations” of a ban on all ballistic missile activity.
It cited North Korea’s ballistic missile tests from April to June as direct snubs of global condemnation and threatened to take stronger measures. It flew an estimated 500 kilometers (310 miles) toward the seas around Japan, the longest distance North Korea has yet achieved in a submarine launch. The submarine-launched test-firing is the third of its kind this year and marks an escalation in the North’s provocations, showing its apparent progress in developing weapons technology.
Members also expressed “their commitment to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution to the situation” and stressed “the importance of working to reduce tensions in the Korean peninsula and beyond”. But if North Korea could threaten the US mainland, then that’s a whole different calculation.
North Korea is barred under United Nations resolutions from any use of ballistic missile technology, but Pyongyang has carried out several launches following its fourth nuclear test in January.
Rep. Chung Jin-suk, floor leader of the ruling Saenuri Party, said on Monday that the DPRK’s SLBM became a serious threat to security in South Korea and Northeast Asia, asking military authorities to actively review special countermeasures such as the nuclear-powered submarine deployment.
Diplomats say China, which has close ties to North Korea, has blocked council action or insisted on changes in previous proposed texts that were unacceptable to other members.
The UNSC consistently condemned North Korea’s ballistic missile tests until June, but in July China and Russian Federation became reluctant to back any further condemnations.
Earlier this August, the council members’ efforts to announce a statement denouncing North Korea’s medium-range missile launch in July were abolished due to China’s demand to include a denunciation of the THAAD deployment in South Korea.
By developing nuclear weapons, South Korea and Japan would each be risking its relationship with the United States and exposing itself to economic and energy sanctions. She said the missile launch marked the latest in an “accelerating campaign” of missile tests that violate multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.
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NORTH Korea’s crackpot dictator Kim Jong-Un has more nuclear power in his arsenal than first feared.
