News / Interviews

UN sanctions against North Korea counterproductive: Analyst

Friday, 02 December 2016 6:32 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 02 December 2016 6:35 PM ]

This undated picture released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on December 2, 2016 shows an intensive drill of KPA artillery units on the front which North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un attended. (Photo by AFP)

North Korea has carried out a large-scale artillery drill simulating an attack on South Korea, as Seoul and Tokyo unveil fresh unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs. The exercise came just hours after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a new resolution imposing tough new sanctions on the North following its fifth nuclear test in September, curbing Pyongyang’s biggest exports of coal by at least 60 percent.

A political analyst believes the UN sanctions against North Korea seem to have been really “counterproductive”, adding that they are almost reminiscent of World War II and the situation that Japan was put into prior to its attack on Pearl Harbor.

The UN sanctions "have achieved the exact opposite of what they intended to achieve. I would expect that North Korea or the current leadership of North Korea would be motivated to do anything of that nature. Certainly they are faced with an enemy that has overwhelming nuclear capabilities and I think that in this world, nuclear weapons are truly obsolete,” Steven Kelley told Press TV in an interview on Friday.

“However, for a country of that stature…, the threat of having nuclear weapons or using nuclear weapons seems to be the one thing that these countries that have not fallen under the heel of the new world order have to use to protect themselves from being obliterated like Libya or Iraq,” he added.

Kelley further stated there is a “massive amount of hypocrisy” from countries that possess nuclear weapons in the world which makes others think that they also need them to protect themselves.

The analyst further argued that South Korea and Japan have a “legitimate reason” to be frightened, given the fact that they do not have nuclear deterrent.

However, he said, the relationship between China and North Korea is certainly more interesting and “potentially volatile" than the situation with other neighboring countries.

North Korea has been under a raft of UN sanctions over its nuclear and missile tests.

Pyongyang says it will not abandon its nuclear “deterrence” unless Washington ends its “hostile” policy toward the country.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk