“To be clear, the United States does not, and never will, accept North Korea as a nuclear state”.
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US ambassador Samantha Power urged the council to vigorously promote implementation of four previous sanctions resolutions “to demonstrate to North Korea that there are consequences for its unlawful and risky actions”.
A press statement agreed on by all 15 UN Security Council members said diplomats will draft a new resolution in response to its earlier promise to take “further significant measures” if the North continues to defy the worldwide community.
North Korea has said it will not submit to U.S. “nuclear blackmail”, following the west’s condemnation of its fifth and largest nuclear test. North Korea is seeking to flawless its nuclear weapons and their delivery vehicles so they can hold the region and the world hostage under threat of nuclear strike.
Ms Geun-Hye had accused Kim Jong-un of “maniacal recklessness” following the test at the Punggye-ri nuclear site. The yield was higher than the estimated six kilotons detected in January’s nuclear test.
North Korea has been testing different types of missiles at an unprecedented rate this year, and the capability to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile is especially worrisome for its neighbors South Korea and Japan. The test, the fifth of its kind, caused a 5 magnitude tremor.
But since that measure was adopted, North Korea has carried out 21 ballistic missile launches, U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said, describing those tests and Pyongyang’s second nuclear detonation this year as “more than brazen defiance”. Yun is also to deliver a speech at the U.N. General Assembly meeting on September 23.
The UN Security Council agreed to start work on just that – even though five sets of UN sanctions since the first nuclear test a decade ago have failed to halt the North’s drive for what it insists are defensive weapons.
During a closed-door meeting on Friday, the council strongly condemned the test and agreed to begin drafting a new resolution under Article 41 of the United Nations charter, which provides for sanctions.
Cheong Seong-chang, a senior analyst at the Sejong Institute in Seongnam, south of Seoul, argued that a South Korean nuclear program might distract North Korea from its efforts to build a long-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead overseas. “Owning nuclear weapons won’t ensure North Korea’s political security”, it said in an editorial.
The U.N. Security Council has expressed strong condemnation of North Korea’s latest nuclear test. But it has been infuriated by the isolated nation’s nuclear and missile tests and has signed up to increasingly tough United Nations sanctions.
Jin Qiangyi, Director of Yanbian University’s Centre for North and South Korea Studies on the Chinese side of the North Korea border, said China would be in a quandary about a substantive reaction. On Monday, it fired three medium-range missiles during a G20 summit in neighboring China that was attended by U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano called it a “deeply troubling and regrettable act”.
North Korea carried out a large-scale nuclear test Friday – triggering an explosive response from President Obama. The remarks were made in a celebratory address at a banquet marking the 68th anniversary of the regime’s foundation.
Cui, repeating the government’s official line, said the launch would not help solve the North Korean problem and only further provoke a regional arm race.
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“But it has not yet completed the re-entry technology needed to develop an ICBM (inter-continental ballistic missile) that could hit Hawaii or the United States mainland”, Yang said.
