Security Council Ends Again Without Results... UN Ambassador Says "North Korea's ICBM Is a Mockery of the UN"

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held an open meeting on the 20th (local time) at the UN Headquarters in New York to discuss North Korea's recent intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test launch, but failed to produce any significant outcome.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

The meeting was convened at the request of the United States and Japan, both UNSC members, as well as South Korea, a non-member. The US, Japan, South Korea, and Western countries condemned North Korea's repeated ballistic missile provocations as violations of Security Council resolutions and urged action at the UNSC level. Since North Korea's ICBM launches violate UN resolutions, they argued that sanctions against North Korea should be automatically strengthened under UNSC Resolution 2397 adopted in 2017.

However, China and Russia once again defended North Korea's provocations as legitimate responses to joint US-South Korea military exercises. By siding with North Korea's claims, they prevented the meeting from resulting in any official UNSC action.

This was the second time this year that the Security Council publicly convened regarding North Korea's nuclear missile provocations. A meeting was also held on the 20th of last month in response to the test launch of the Hwasong-15 missile, but it ended without any results.

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US Ambassador to the UN, targeted China and Russia, saying, "Two members of the Security Council think we should remain silent, but silence from the Security Council is ineffective." Thomas-Greenfield added, "China and Russia's protection of the North Korean regime is encouraging North Korea's ballistic missile launches," and raised her voice, asking, "What would happen if a nuclear test were conducted at the Chinese border?"

Hwang Joon-kook, the South Korean Ambassador to the UN attending as a concerned party, emphasized that day, "We strongly condemn North Korea's continuous ballistic missile launches in the strongest terms," and stressed, "North Korea's hostile policies, threats to the Security Council's functions, and brazen mockery of the UN itself must stop."

He introduced the fact that North Korea enacted a nuclear force policy law allowing preemptive nuclear strikes based on arbitrary standards in response to claims that the US-South Korea joint exercises triggered North Korea's ICBM launches, calling such claims "nonsense." Furthermore, he urged, "North Korea is blatantly rejecting South Korea's 'Bold Initiative' and the US's unconditional demands for dialogue and diplomacy," and called on the Security Council to hold North Korea accountable for its continuous violations of international obligations."

On the other hand, Geng Shuang, China's Deputy Ambassador to the UN, argued, "The unprecedented large-scale joint military exercises conducted by the US and its allies have caused North Korea to feel uneasy." Anna Evstigneva, Russia's Deputy Ambassador, also pointed fingers at the US and South Korea, saying, "We oppose any military activities that endanger security and safety on the Korean Peninsula and in Northeast Asia."

Earlier, North Korea launched one Hwasong-17 ICBM from Sunan, Pyongyang, into the East Sea on the morning of the 16th, just before the South Korea-Japan summit, followed by a short-range ballistic missile launch into the East Sea on the 19th.