US calls on UN to condemn North Korea; China, Russia are blaming the United States

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The United States and its allies called on the United Nations Security Council on Monday to condemn North Korea’s illegal ballistic missile launch, but China and Russia blamed the United States for escalating tensions with military exercises targeting Pyongyang.

At the emergency meeting, US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council that the US would propose a presidential statement, requiring at least 15 members to agree to condemn the North’s unprecedented missile launch, calling on Pyongyang to comply with UN security. The council approved the resolution, and “to engage in meaningful dialogue.”

The Security Council President’s statement requires the support of all its members, including North Korea’s close allies China and Russia.

Thomas-Greenfield said the United States condemned North Korea’s launch of two short-range ballistic missiles. monday The country’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Saturday was described as a “clear violation” of the council’s ban on ballistic missile launches in “stronger terms”.

Thomas-Greenfield said the launch and North Korea’s threatening rhetoric undermine international peace and security.

And he warned the council that its silence and failure to condemn the North’s missile activity “leads to irrelevance.”

But Pyongyang’s allies China and Russia have countered that what is needed now is dialogue between North Korea and the Biden administration, scaling back military exercises, easing sanctions on North Korea and approval of a resolution they floated in November 2021 aimed at a resolution. The situation on the Korean peninsula.

The resolution calls on the Security Council to end many sanctions against North Korea and calls on the United States and North Korea to resume negotiations and consider steps to reduce tensions and the risk of military conflict, including a declaration or formal conclusion of a peace agreement. 1950-53 Korean War. The war ended in an armistice, leaving the peninsula technically at war.

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China’s deputy UN ambassador Dai Bing said the US-South Korean joint military exercises “at a high level and on a large scale,” the deployment of US strategic assets and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s high-profile visits to Seoul and Tokyo two weeks ago, were “extremely provocative” for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. “, “and increases feelings of insecurity.”

“Since the United States has repeatedly expressed its willingness to unconditionally engage in dialogue with the DPRK, it should take concrete steps to initiate and maintain dialogue,” he said. “Pursuing exclusively and piling on sanctions will only lead to a dead end.”

Russia’s deputy ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told the council that North Korea’s missile tests were responding to “unprecedented military maneuvers in the region under the umbrella of the United States that are clearly anti-Pyongyang in nature.”

Japan’s U.N. Ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane, whose country called the emergency meeting, told the council that Saturday’s ICBM fell in Japan’s exclusive economic zone just 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Hokkaido, where people saw it fall from the sky.

“I guess we can all imagine how terrifying it was to see a missile flying at you,” he said, stressing that it endangers ships and aircraft and is “an act of intimidation and intimidation by force.”

To those who claim that the Security Council meeting provokes North Korea “and therefore we should remain silent,” Ishikane countered that remaining silent “will only encourage rule breakers to write the playbook they like.”

After the council meeting, Thomas-Greenfield read a statement on behalf of the 10 council countries and South Korea, flanked by their ambassadors, strongly condemning the latest missile launch and calling on the five other council countries to “join in condemning the DPRK’s irresponsible behavior.”

The 11 countries – Albania, Ecuador, France, Japan, Malta, Mozambique, Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and South Korea – “are fully committed to diplomacy and continue to call on the DPRK to return to dialogue,” the statement said.

“However, we will not remain silent as the DPRK continues to increase its illegal nuclear and missile capabilities, which threaten international peace and security,” their statement said.