North Korea warns US, Europeans against raising issue of missile test at UNSC meeting
North Korea has warned the United States and Europeans that it will not “sit idle” if any attempt is made at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to bring up the subject of Pyongyang’s recent missile tests, which are “self-defensive measures.”
North Korea's UN Ambassador Kim Song made the warning on Monday.
Germany, France and Britain have called for a closed-door UNSC meeting on Tuesday to raise the issue of North Korea’s test last week of a sea-launched ballistic missile.
The trio claimed that the North’s missile test had been a “serious violation” of UN resolutions. The discussion at the 15-member council was requested by Germany with the support of Britain and France.
Addressing a small group of reporters at Pyongyang’s UN mission, the North Korean diplomat warned that raising the issue “will further urge our desire to defend our sovereignty.”
“We know well that the United States is behind impure moves of the UK, France and Germany,” Kim said, adding that Washington and its followers “should bear in mind that if they raise the issue of our self-defensive measures at the UN Security Council meeting in this moment, it will further urge our desire to defend our sovereignty.”
He also urged Paris, Berlin and London to consider the timing of their move, adding that they should “know that we can never sit idle on the attempt of taking issue of our self-defensive measures.”
On Wednesday, Pyongyang test-fired a new ballistic missile designed for submarine launch.
The submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), which flew 450 kilometers and reached an altitude of 910 kilometers, landed in waters near Japan’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
North Korea had been developing SLBM technology before it suspended long-range missile and nuclear tests last year.
The North Korean UN ambassador’s warning came two days after North Korea broke off nuclear talks with the US in Sweden.
Those talks followed a months-long stalemate in the wake of an unsuccessful February meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, between the North's Leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump.
North Korea, currently under multiple rounds of harsh sanctions by the UN and the United States over its nuclear and missile programs, put a unilateral halt to its missile and nuclear tests shortly before a diplomatic thaw began between Pyongyang and Seoul in early 2018.
But diplomacy hit a dead end as Washington refused to reciprocate unilateral North Korean steps. And later, Kim indicated that his country would resume its nuclear and missile tests.
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