[1/2]File photo: A rocket carrying a Malligyong-1 spy satellite is set to be fired, the North Korean government claims, from a location indicated as North Gyeongsang Province in North Korea in this handout image obtained by Portal on November 21, 2023 is. KCNA via Portal/File Photo Purchase license rights
UNITED NATIONS, Nov 27 (Portal) – The U.N. ambassadors of the United States and North Korea discussed Pyongyang’s first spy satellite launch and the reasons for rising tensions in the Security Council on Monday in a rare, direct, public exchange between the adversaries.
After a nearly six-year absence, North Korea again began sending its U.N. envoy to Security Council meetings in July on its nuclear and missile programs. The 15-member panel met Monday for the Nov. 21 launch of the spy satellite.
At the end of the meeting, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield and North Korean Ambassador Kim Song made unplanned remarks and dueled at the council table for the right to respond, each arguing that their countries were acting defensively.
“A belligerent party, the United States, is threatening us with a nuclear weapon,” Kim told the council.
“It is a legitimate right of the DPRK – as another belligerent party – to develop, test, manufacture and possess weapons systems equivalent to those that the United States already possesses and or is currently developing,” he said.
North Korea, officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has been under UN sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs. This also includes a ban on the development of ballistic missiles.
This technology was used in the satellite’s launch last week and follows testing of dozens of ballistic missiles over the past 20 months. The United States has long warned that Pyongyang is ready for a seventh nuclear test.
“We firmly reject the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s disingenuous assertion that its missile launches were purely defensive in nature in response to our bilateral and trilateral military exercises,” Thomas-Greenfield said, adding that the U.S. exercises were routine and defensive and announced in advance.
“I would like to once again sincerely express our offer of dialogue without preconditions, the DPRK only has to accept,” she said.
Denuclearization talks between North Korea, South Korea, China, the United States, Russia and Japan stalled in 2009. The talks between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then US President Donald Trump in 2018 and 2019 also failed.
Kim said North Korea would continue to strengthen its capabilities until “the ongoing military threat” is eliminated. Thomas-Greenfield said North Korea’s actions were based on paranoia about a possible US attack.
“If there is something the United States wants to give to the DPRK, it is humanitarian assistance to your people, not weapons to destroy your people,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
For several years there has been disagreement in the UN Security Council about how to deal with Pyongyang. Russia and China, which join the US, Britain and France as veto powers, have said further sanctions would not help and want those measures eased.
China and Russia say joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises are provoking Pyongyang, while Washington accuses Beijing and Moscow of encouraging North Korea by shielding it from further sanctions.
Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Edited by Grant McCool and Sandra Maler
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