South Korea on Sunday announced the start of an official negotiation with the United States on possible deployment of an advanced USA missile defense system after the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)’s nuclear test and long-range rocket launch in about a month.
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The UN Security Council strongly condemned North Korea’s rocket launch on Sunday and agreed to move quickly to impose new sanctions that will punish Pyongyang for “these risky and serious violations”.
North Korea’s latest long-range rocket launch is raising concerns in the United States and its allies that the communist country is moving forward with its ballistic missile program.
“I think we need to unite with the global community so that North Korea does no nuclear tests and missile launches”.
In the flurry of diplomatic activity and condemnations following North Korea’s launch, a top US commander in South Korea made the most forceful case to date by the USA military for the positioning of the Lockheed Martin Corp.-made Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense, or Thaad, system in South Korea.
The rocket launch triggered the usual warnings about tightened economic sanctions and emergency meetings of the United Nations Security Council that follow North Korean provocations.
House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) said Sunday pending legislation to strengthen USA sanctions against Pyongyang must move ahead.
Setting out the UK’s response, Mr Hammond said: “We will work with other partners, we have already strongly condemned North Korea’s actions, we will be taking appropriate bilateral steps – summoning the North Korean ambassador as we always do when they carry out one of these tests”.
Japan could seek cooperation from the United States, South Korea and members of Group of Seven industrialized nations for its sanctions, but this may also prove tricky.
The 15-nation council in a statement on Sunday reiterated that it would soon adopt a sanctions resolution “in response to these risky and serious violations”.
The government also said it will expand its psychological warfare of anti-North Korean loudspeaker broadcasts, a tactic that irritates North Korea.
Most importantly, China, North Korea’s only major ally, is unlikely to support stronger punishment against Pyongyang over fears of provoking a regime collapse, and potentially a stream of refugees across the border, analysts say.
Kishida, however, has held no talks with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, or other top Chinese diplomats since Pyongyang’s nuclear test in January to seek Beijing’s support to punish North Korea.
Instead it had concentrated on developing an indigenous missile defense system for intercepting short to medium range ballistic missiles, using primarily Patriot-type interceptors. “What North Korea is doing with each of these acts, these illegal acts, with each of these launches, is the launches themselves are advancing North Korea’s capacity to advance its nuclear weapons program”.
She says the launch undermines regional stability and violates obligations under four separate Security Council resolutions.
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South Korea was monitoring for signs of another provocation from Pyongyang Monday, after it emerged that the South had fired shots to warn away a trespassing North Korean patrol boat earlier in the day.
