THE United States and its allies have clashed with China and Russia over North Korea’s missile launches and American-led military exercises in South Korea, again preventing any action by the deeply divided United Nations Security Council.
US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said North Korea’s “staggering 59 ballistic missile launches this year”, including 13 since October 27 and one that made an “unprecedented impact” about 50 kilometres from South Korea’s shore, are about more than advancing Pyongyang’s military capabilities and seek to raise tensions and stoke fear among its neighbours.
She said 13 of the 15 UN Security Council members had condemned North Korea’s actions since the beginning of the year.
But Pyongyang has been protected by Russia and China who have “bent over backwards” to justify repeated violations of UN sanctions by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, the country’s official name, she said.
“And, in turn, they have enabled the DPRK and made a mockery of this council,” Ms Thomas-Greenfield said.
China’s UN ambassador Zhang Jun countered that the DPRK missile launches were directly linked to the re-launch of large-scale US-South Korean military exercises after a five-year break, with hundreds of warplanes involved.
He also pointed to the US Defense Department’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, which he said envisages the DPRK’s use of nuclear weapons and claims that ending the DPRK regime is one of the strategy’s main goals.
Russia’s deputy UN ambassador Anna Evstigneeva blamed the significantly worsening situation on the Korean peninsula on “the desire of Washington to force Pyongyang to unilaterally disarm by using sanctions and exerting pressure and force”.
She called the US-South Korean exercises that began on October 31 unprecedented in size, with about 240 military aircraft, and claimed they are “essentially a rehearsal for conducting massive strikes on the territory of the DPRK”.
