Antonio Guterres called on North Korea to “immediately renounce any further provocative action” after a missile fell off Japan.
SourceAFP
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LNorth Korea has called UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres a “puppet of the United States” for condemning the firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by Pyongyang, hours before a new Council meeting security on the subject on Monday. “I express my deep regret that the UN Secretary-General observes a truly deplorable attitude, oblivious to the objective and principles of the UN Charter and its very mission which is to maintain impartiality, objectivity and fairness in all matters,” North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said in a statement quoted by the official KCNA news agency on Sunday evening.
On Friday, Guterres called on North Korea to “immediately desist from any further provocative acts” and to “completely respect its international obligations under Security Council resolutions” after an ICBM was fired the same day. fell off Japan. Ms Choe complained that the UN chief described North Korea’s missile tests as “provocations”, not the joint military maneuvers regularly carried out in the region by the United States, Korea of the South and Japan and which, according to her, “led to the current situation of confrontation on the Korean peninsula”. “This clearly proves that he is a puppet of the United States,” she said. The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday to discuss the situation on the Korean peninsula, as North Korea increases its missile launches and is suspected by Seoul in Washington of preparing a nuclear test.
“Monster Missile”
KCNA said the missile fired on Friday was a Hwasong-17 type ICBM, dubbed a “monster missile” by military experts. Images released by the North Korean state agency showed leader Kim Jong-un personally attending preparations for the launch, accompanied by his daughter, whose existence was thus confirmed for the first time. Calling on the UN Security Council to “respond appropriately” to this shooting, the European Union condemned “a dangerous, illegal and irresponsible action”. Also denouncing an “irresponsible” action, the G7 foreign ministers (Germany, Canada, United States, France, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom) called for “a united and robust response from the international community , including the need for the UN Security Council to take additional meaningful action”.
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The Security Council has passed nearly a dozen resolutions imposing sanctions on North Korea over its nuclear and missile-firing activity since 2006. But any new sanctions are unlikely: Russia and China, which are critical of also the military maneuvers of Washington in the region, oppose their veto to any initiative in this direction. Seoul, Washington and Tokyo have intensified their military cooperation since North Korea proclaimed in September that its status as a nuclear power was “irreversible”, ending any possibility of dialogue on its disarmament. In particular, the United States and South Korea carried out their largest joint air maneuvers in their history in late October and early November, deploying stealth aircraft and strategic bombers.
North Korea, which considers this type of maneuver as dress rehearsals for an invasion of its territory or an attempt to overthrow its regime, responded by firing a copious salvo of ballistic missiles in the weeks that followed, including the Friday’s ICBM. Kim Jong-un called the U.S.-South Korean maneuvers a “war exercise in hysterical aggression” and vowed to respond “resolutely to nuclear weapons with nuclear weapons and all-out confrontation with merciless confrontation”, according to remarks reported Saturday by KCNA.