US seeks tighter UN sanctions after NKorea missile test
SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA » The United States called Friday for tougher U.N. sanctions after North Korea said it test-fired its biggest intercontinental ballistic missile to date, with Kim Jong Un vowing to expand his country’s “nuclear war deterrent” while preparing for a “long-standing confrontation” with the United States.
North Korean state media reported the North’s first long-range test since 2017, and South Korea and Japan said they detected it. Thursday’s launch extended a barrage of weapons demonstrations this year that analysts say are aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power and remove crippling sanctions against its broken economy.
At a U.N. Security Council meeting Friday, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas Greenfield said the U.S. would propose a resolution “to update and strengthen” Security Council sanctions. She declined to specify what those new measures might be.
“It is clear that remaining silent, in the hope that the DPRK would similarly show restraint, is a failed strategy,” she said. DPRK is acronym for the country’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea.
The council originally imposed sanctions after the North’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years.
But last fall, veto-wielding China and Russia called for lifting various sanctions against their neighbor.
Russian Deputy Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva said Friday that further sanctions would only harm North Korea’s people, while Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun urged the council “to consider how to accommodate the DPRK’s justified security concerns.”
He suggested that the U.S. didn’t do enough to respond to the North’s 2018 self-imposed pause on longrange missile and nuclear tests and needed to “show its goodwill” and “work harder to stabilize the situation” and resume dialogue.
North Korea didn’t speak at the council meeting. A message seeking comment was sent to its U.N. mission.
Meanwhile, the U.S. imposed new sanctions of its own against five entities and individuals in Russia and North Korea over transferring sensitive items to the North’s missile program, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.
North Korean state TV dramatized the missile testing process like a Hollywood movie, showing Kim walking in slow motion in front of a giant missile in sunglasses and a black leather motorcycle jacket. After a series of quick cuts of Kim and military officials staring at their watches, Kim takes off his shades and nods, and the missile is shown being rolled out of the hangar.
The Hwasong-17, which was fired at a high angle to avoid the territorial waters of neighbors, reached a maximum altitude of 6,248 kilometers (3,880 miles) and traveled 1,090 kilometers (680 miles) during a 67-minute flight before landing in waters between North Korea and Japan, Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency said.
KCNA claimed the launch met its technical objectives and proved the ICBM could be operated quickly during wartime conditions.
The South Korean and Japanese militaries had announced similar flight details, which analysts say suggested that the missile could reach targets 15,000 kilometers (9,320 miles) away when fired on normal trajectory with a warhead weighing less than a ton. That would place the entire U.S. mainland within striking distance.
Believed to be about 25 meters (82 feet) long, the Hwasong-17 is the North’s longest-range weapon and, by some estimates, the world’s biggest road-mobile ballistic missile system. North Korea revealed the missile in a military parade in October 2020 and Thursday’s launch was its first full-range test.
KCNA paraphrased Kim as saying that the new weapon would make the “whole world clearly aware” of the North’s bolstered nuclear forces. He vowed for his military to acquire “formidable military and technical capabilities unperturbed by any military threat and blackmail and keep themselves fully ready for long-standing confrontation with the U.S. imperialists.”
The agency published photos of the missile leaving a trail of orange flames as it soared from a launcher truck on an airport runway near the capital, Pyongyang, and Kim smiling and clapping as he celebrated with military officials from an observation deck.