North Korea missile draws UN condemnation
Strong ally China says world reaction should be ‘prudent and moderate’
UNITED NATIONS — The UN Security Council condemned North Korea’s successful missile launch on Wednesday and said it will urgently consider “an appropriate response.”
Whether that response includes new sanctions against the North, which the United States and its European allies are seeking, depends first and foremost on China, the North’s closest ally, which has not made its position clear.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Hong Lei, cautioned that the council’s response should be “prudent and moderate and conducive to maintaining stability and avoiding escalation of the situation.”
The Security Council said in a brief statement after closed consultations that the launch violated council resolutions adopted after North Korea’s nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 and a ban on “any launch using ballistic missile technology.”
The successful missile launch is widely seen as a test that takes North Korea one step closer to being capable of sending a nuclear-tipped warhead as far as California. North Korea officials say the rocket is meant to send a satellite into orbit to study crops and weather patterns, and Pyongyang maintains its right to develop a civilian space program.
U.S. ambassador Susan Rice said that no matter how the North Koreans choose to describe the launch it violates two council resolutions and shows that the country “is determined to pursue its ballistic missile program without regard for its international obligations.”
She told reporters that the United States will be working with the council, South Korea, Japan and other countries in the international community “to pursue appropriate action.”
The closed Security Council consultations were also at- tended by the five nations that will join the council on Jan. 1, including South Korea.
South Korea’s UN ambassador, Kim Sook, said afterward that the launch was “a blatant violation” of council resolutions and “constitutes a very dangerous challenge to the security of the Republic of Korea and the security situa- tion in Korean peninsula and northeast Asia.”
He said consultations will continue, and “I believe the Security Council will take appropriate action in swift and robust manner.”
A U.S. National Security Council spokesman, Tommy Vietor, said in Washington that “the international community must work in a concerted fashion to send North Korea a clear message that its violations of UN Security Council resolutions have consequences.”
The Security Council has imposed two rounds of sanctions against the North, following each of its nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009.
Germany’s UN ambassador Peter Wittig said, “I think it’s time to ... send out a clear message to DPRK sooner rather than later,” using the initials of the country’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Britain’s UN ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said that in his country’s view, the council “should react quickly and should react strongly to this provocation.”
The British government summoned North Korea’s ambassador to the U.K., Hyon Hak Bong, to the Foreign Office to condemn the rocket launch, saying the move threatened regional stability.
Britain’s Foreign Office said senior civil servant Simon Fraser urged Pyongyang to immediately re-engage “constructively” with the international community and pointed out that the money spent on the launch could have been used to bring food and modernization to North Korean citizens.
Council diplomats have speculated that existing sanctions could be widened to include financial measures and additional companies and individuals in North Korea. The council could also consider measures that would lead to more robust implementation of sanctions, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions have been private.