A defiant North Korea Sunday restated its demand for recognition as a “legitimate” nuclear-armed state, as world powers pondered ways to punish Pyongyang for its latest and largest atomic test.
Advertisement
The US threatened unilateral sanctions on Sunday following a US special envoy meeting with Japanese officials in the wake of the test.
But Pyongyang openly laughed at the idea.
“The group of Obama’s running around and talking about meaningless sanctions until today is highly laughable, when their “strategic patience” policy is completely worn out and they are close to packing up to move out”, state-run KCNA news agency cited a North Korean foreign ministry spokesman as saying in a statement later on Sunday.
The U.N. Security Council denounced North Korea’s decision to carry out the test and said it would begin work immediately on a resolution.
The South’s Yonhap news agency reported South Korea’s military had a plan to use its missiles to “decimate” areas of Pyongyang if there were signs the North was about to launch a nuclear attack, quoting a source in the military.
The country is already in talks with the U.S.to install a missile-defense system, and the military source told Yonhap it would use ballistic missiles against North Korea if necessary.
South Korean Foreign Affairs Minister Yun Byung-se called on the global community to put more sanctions and pressure on North Korea so that it could “suffer from pain” – and change.
He says there has been rising criticism within South Korea of the government as its attempts to isolate the North have failed to deter leader Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambitions. It will raise serious worries in many world capitals that North Korea has moved another step closer to its goal of a nuclear-armed missile that could one day strike the US mainland.
He said: “The members of the Security Council further regretted that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is diverting resources to the pursuit of ballistic missiles while Democratic People’s Republic of Korea citizens have great unmet needs”.
North Korea carried out what is believed to be its fifth and largest nuclear test on Friday, prompting the worldwide community to consider how to respond, BBC reported.
“We will be working very closely in the Security Council and beyond to come up with the strongest possible measure against North Korea’s latest actions”, said USA envoy Sung Kim on Sunday.
Among possible new measures are believed to include a ban on oil export by China to North Korea, which had been pushed by the US but failed to go into Resolution 2270, and tougher restraint on North Korea’s export of coal, iron, steel and labor.
“China can no longer protect a certain aspect (of its trade with North Korea).We expect it to play a big role (in imposing economic restraint on the North)”, he said, hinting a possibility of the trade between the two traditional allies becoming the prime target of a new round of sanctions.
“Japan lodges a serious protest against North Korea, and condemns North Korea in the strongest possible terms”, said Abe, adding Japan will “consider further measures” against North Korea including “further actions” in the UN Security Council.
Advertisement
The North has yet to demonstrate that it had deployed nuclear-capable missiles, despite claims to have mastered the technology to miniaturize a nuclear warhead to mount it on ballistic missiles.
