by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – An emergency open meeting of the UN Security Council on Friday saw the United States and its allies South Korea and Japan clash with China and Russia over North Korea’s continued launches of satellite and ballistic missile technology in violation of UN sanctions, the Associated Press reports.
Officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, North Korea, led by erratic and brutal dictator Kim Jong UN, has used banned technology to launch more than 100 missiles as part of its nuclear weapons program, AP reports. The US and its allies have conducted an increasing number of military drills in response.
North Korea’s UN Ambassador Kim Song asserted that the missile launches are “the legitimate and universal right of a sovereign state” under international law and the Outer Space Treaty, AP reports. Kim added that the “massive deployment of strategic assets and aggressive war exercises” by the United States on the Korean Peninsula have destroyed military balance, turning the region “into the most fragile zone in the world, fraught with the danger of outbreak of war.”
However, South Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Joonkook Hwang emphasized that North Korea’s policies and rhetoric “are getting increasingly aggressive and hostile,” AP reports. Hwang added that Pyongyang is working to develop a nuclear weapon not as a deterrent against the United States “but instead as a means to attack my country.”
US Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood said the Security Council must condemn North Korea’s actions and violations of UN sanctions. Wood added that such condemnation is impeded by the two permanent members of the council. “Two council members, China and Russia, continuously block the Security Council from speaking against the DPRK’s behavior with one voice and make us all less safe,” Wood said.
Russian U.N. Ambassador Anna Evstigneeva retorted that “one of the key catalysts for the growing tensions in the region has been and remains the build-up of military activity by the US and its allies,” AP reports. China’s UN Ambassador Fu Cong described the situation in the Korean Peninsula as “highly tense, with antagonism and confrontation escalating,” AP reports.
Copyright 1999-2024 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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