Sylvie Claire / March 26, 2022
The United States called Friday at the UN Security Council for tougher international sanctions against North Korea, accused of increasingly dangerous provocations, the day after it fired a powerful intercontinental ballistic missile.
The United States calls on all member states to fully implement existing Security Council resolutions, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield said at a Council meeting on North Korea.
The meeting was convened at the request of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Albania, Ireland and Norway.
In the presence of her Chinese and Russian counterparts, the U.S. ambassador announced that due to increasingly dangerous provocations by the DPRK, the U.S. would submit a resolution to the Security Council to update and strengthen the sanctions regime of UNSCR 2397.
The text had been adopted unanimously by Council members on December 22, 2017, a month after Pyongyang fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), the Hwasong-15, which could carry an extra-large heavy warhead capable of striking the entire continental United States.
In late 2017, Thomas-Greenfield recalled, the (Security) Council had decided that we would act in the event of a DPRK launch of an ICBM.
After the last ICBM launch in November 2017, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un had formalized his moratorium on nuclear testing and long-range ballistic missile launches in April 2018, claiming that its goals had been achieved. At the time, he proclaimed that his country had become a full-fledged nuclear state.
But on Thursday, Kim Jong Un personally ordered and supervised the firing of the country's most powerful ICBM, ensuring that Pyongyang is ready for a long-term confrontation with the United States, the state news agency reported Friday.
The shooting was condemned by the G7 on Friday, which denounced a flagrant violation of North Korea's obligations to the United Nations.