US and allies clash with China and Russia over North Korea’s launches and threats to use nukes
UNITED NATIONS — The United States and allies South Korea and Japan clashed with China and Russia on Friday over North Korea’s newest satellite ballistic missile launches and threats to use nuclear weapons that have escalated tensions in Northeast Asia.
The scene was an open emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, named after North Korea’s failed launch of a military reconnaissance satellite on May 27 and other launches using ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions.
Since early 2022, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea – the North’s official name – has launched more than 100 missiles using the banned technology as the country continues to develop its nuclear weapons program. In response, the US and its allies have conducted an increasing number of military exercises.
UN Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari briefed the council meeting, saying that sovereign states have the right to benefit from peaceful space activities – but the DPRK is expressly prohibited from carrying out launches using ballistic missile technology and continues to undermine its continued violations the global nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation treaties.
“We remain deeply concerned about the rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula,” Khiari said. “There is a need for practical measures to reduce tensions, reverse the dangerous dynamics and create space to explore diplomatic avenues.”
North Korea’s UN Ambassador Kim Song insisted that his satellites be launched – and last November it was successful – are “the legitimate and universal right of a sovereign state” under international law and the Outer Space Treaty. He stressed that reconnaissance satellites are needed not only to strengthen the country’s self-defense capabilities but also to defend its sovereignty.
Kim told the Security Council that the United States’ “massive deployment of strategic assets and aggressive war exercises” on the Korean Peninsula and in the region have broken records and destroyed the military balance.
This has turned the Korean Peninsula “into the most vulnerable zone in the world, fraught with the danger of outbreak of war,” he said, claiming that joint military exercises since the beginning of the year “are a US-led rehearsal for a be nuclear war. ”
The Ambassador of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea said the Security Council should not waste time debating the legitimate rights of a sovereign state, but should focus its attention on immediately ending killing civilians in Gaza“which continues unabated under American protection.”
South Korea’s UN Ambassador Joonkook Hwang said it should be his country – and not the DPRK – that should demand the right to self-defense.
He said the DPRK’s nuclear policy and rhetoric are “becoming increasingly aggressive and hostile,” and that Pyongyang no longer views its nuclear arsenal merely as a deterrent against the United States, “but instead as a means to to fall.’
He quoted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s sister, Kim Yo-jong, who said two weeks ago that the only purpose of their tactical nuclear weapons “is to teach Seoul a lesson.”
US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood urged the Security Council to condemn the DPRK launches and hold the country accountable for violating UN sanctions.
“But two council members, China and Russia, continually prevent the Security Council from speaking with one voice against the DPRK’s behavior, making us all less safe,” he said.
Wood also accused the DPRK of unlawfully transferring dozens of ballistic missiles and more than 11,000 containers of ammunition to Russia to support the war against Ukraine and “prolong the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”
He dismissed claims by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and its supporters on the council that their missile launches are in response to US-led military exercises as “baseless” and unfair.
Russia’s UN Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva countered that “one of the main catalysts for the growing tensions in the region is and remains the build-up of military activity by the US and its allies.”
US-led military exercises against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and numerous other hostile actions with a threatening military component “provoke countermeasures from North Korea, which is forced to take action to strengthen its national defense capabilities,” she said.
Evstigneeva claimed that “the unstable situation around the Korean Peninsula is to the advantage of Washington, which confidently and purposefully continues to follow the path of confrontation rather than dialogue.”
She also dismissed as “absolutely baseless” claims that Russia is engaged in illegal military and technical cooperation with the DPRK.
China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong called the situation on the Korean Peninsula “very tense, with antagonism and confrontation escalating,” and called on all sides to exercise restraint and avoid any action or rhetoric that could increase tension.
He warned that a planned large-scale joint military exercise on the peninsula in August “rehearsing a nuclear war scenario” would only increase tensions.
US envoy Wood responded that “the United States does not pose a threat to the DPRK in any way,” and stressed that the US offer in recent years to “extend an open hand” and hold talks without preconditions the DPRK “has been fulfilled. with a clenched fist.”