Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
North Korea launch escalates tensions
Security Council calls for all sanctions to be implemented
The U.N. Security Council condemns the rogue nation after it conducts its longest-ever missile test.
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council strongly condemned North Korea’s “highly provocative” ballistic missile test Friday and demanded that Pyongyang immediately halt its “outrageous actions” and demonstrate its commitment to denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula.
The U.N.’s most powerful body accused North Korea of undermining regional peace and security by launching its latest missile over Japan and said its nuclear and missile tests “have caused grave security concerns around the world” and threaten all 193 U.N. member states.
North Korea’s longestever test flight of a ballistic missile early Friday from Sunan, the location of Pyongyang’s international airport, signaled both defiance of North Korea’s rivals and a big technological advance. After hurtling over Japan, it landed in the northern Pacific Ocean.
Since President Donald Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury” in August, the North has conducted its most powerful nuclear test, threatened to send missiles into the waters around the U.S. Pacific island territory of Guam and launched two missiles of increasing range over Japan. July saw the country’s first tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles that could strike deep into the U.S. mainland when perfected.
On Friday, Trump said: “We will defend our people and our civilization from all who dare to threaten our way of life. This includes the regime of North Korea, which has once again shown its utter contempt for its neighbors and for the entire world community.”
The intermediate-range missile test came four days after the Security Council imposed tough new sanctions on the North for its Sept. 3 missile test including a ban on textile exports and natural gas imports — and caps on its import of oil and petroleum products. The U.S. said the latest sanctions, combined with previous measures, would ban over 90 percent of North Korea’s exports reported in 2016, its main source of hard currency.
North Korea’s Foreign Ministry denounced the sanctions and said the North would “redouble its efforts to increase its strength to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and right to existence.”
The Security Council stressed in Friday’s statement after a closed-door emergency meeting that all countries must “fully, comprehensively and immediately” implement all U.N. sanctions.
Japan’s U.N. Ambassador Koro Bessho called the launch an “outrageous act” that is not only a threat to Japan’s security but a threat to “the world as a whole.”
Bessho and the British, French and Swedish ambassadors demanded that all sanctions be implemented.
Calling the latest launch a “terrible, egregious, illegal, provocative reckless act,” Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said North Korea’s largest trading partners and closest links — a clear reference to China — must “demonstrate that they are doing everything in their power to implement the sanctions of the Security Council and to encourage the North Korean regime to change course.”
France’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the country is ready to work on tougher U.N. and EU measures to convince Pyongyang that there is no interest in an escalation, and to bring it to the negotiating table. It said North Korea will also be discussed during next week’s General Assembly.
Russia’s U.N. Ambassador, Vasily Nebenzya, strongly backed the need for dialogue saying the United States needs to start talks with North Korea, which the Trump administration has ruled out.
Nebenzia told reporters after the meeting that Russia called on the U.S. and others to implement the “political and diplomatic solutions” called for in the latest sanctions resolution.
“Without implementing this, we also will consider it as a non-compliance with the resolution,” Nebenzia said.
The Security Council also emphasized the importance of North Korea working to reduce tension in the Korean Peninsula — and it reiterated the importance of maintaining peace and stability on the territory divided between authoritarian North Korea and democratic South Korea.
The council welcomed efforts by its members and other countries “to facilitate a peaceful and comprehensive solution” to the North Korean nuclear issue through dialogue.
The growing frequency, power and confidence displayed by Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests seem to confirm what governments and outside experts have long feared: North Korea is closer than ever to its goal of building a military arsenal that can viably target U.S. troops both in Asia and in the U.S. homeland.
This, in turn, is meant to allow North Korea greater military freedom in the region by raising doubts in Seoul and Tokyo that Washington would risk the annihilation of a U.S. city to protect its Asian allies.
South Korean President Moon Jae-in, a liberal who initially pushed for talks with North Korea, said its tests make dialogue “impossible.”
“If North Korea provokes us or our allies, we have the strength to smash the attempt at an early stage and inflict a level of damage it would be impossible to recover from,” he said.