(Seoul) International outrage sparked by North Korea’s firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) was met with denial by China and Russia on Thursday before the UN Security Council. to tighten sanctions against Pyongyang.
Posted at 5:02 p.m.
Updated at 9:48 p.m.
The American ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, denounced during a meeting of the Security Council the “increasingly dangerous provocations” of North Korea and announced that the United States would present a resolution in view “to strengthen the sanctions regime” adopted during a previous North Korean ICBM launch in 2017.
But Beijing and Moscow have ruled out any hardening. Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun even pleaded on the contrary for a “relief of sanctions at the right time”, while Russian diplomat Anna Evstigneeva expressed concern that a strengthening of sanctions “would threaten North Korean citizens with social problems. -economic and humanitarian unacceptable”.
The missile, fired on Thursday, flew higher and farther than any previous ICBM tested by the nuclear-armed country.
Called Hwasong-17, it is capable of striking any part of American territory, and has landed in Japan’s exclusive economic maritime zone.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally ordered and supervised the test, assuring, according to the state news agency KCNA, that the missile would make “the whole world aware […] the power of our strategic armed forces”.
North Korea is ‘ready for a long-term confrontation with the American imperialists’, added the one who appears, in photos taken by state media, wearing his usual black leather jacket and dark sunglasses , walking on the tarmac in front of a huge missile.
“Breach”
The shooting was condemned on Friday by the G7, which denounced a “flagrant violation” of North Korea’s obligations to the United Nations.
“These reckless actions threaten regional and international peace and security, pose a dangerous and unpredictable risk to international civil aviation and maritime navigation in the region and demand a united response from the international community,” the foreign ministers stressed. of the seven members of the G7 as well as the high representative of the European Union.
North Korea “certainly has other things in store” after firing the missile, said US national security adviser Jake Sullivan.
The Hwasong-17, first unveiled in October 2020, is dubbed a “monster missile” by analysts. It had never been successfully tested before, and the launch brought new US sanctions.
This is “a break from the moratorium on the launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles to which President Kim Jong-un” had committed in 2017, lamented the President of South Korea, Moon Jae-in.
The South Korean military said it responded by firing “missiles from the ground, sea and air” off its coast.
UN resolutions prohibit North Korea, hit by heavy international sanctions for its nuclear and weapons programs, from testing ballistic missiles.
This did not prevent Pyongyang from carrying out a dozen tests of this type of weaponry since the start of the year.
But it was not until now intercontinental missiles, even if Washington and Seoul suspect the North Korean regime of having tested certain ICBM systems during these launches.
Pyongyang carried out three ICBM launches in 2017. The device then tested, the Hwasong-15, was capable of reaching the United States.
failed last week
According to Seoul, a missile test by North Korea on March 16 ended in failure, with the projectile exploding in the sky above Pyongyang shortly after launch.
Analysts expected Pyongyang, which will celebrate on April 15 the 110and anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country’s founder and grandfather of Kim Jong-un, puts on a show of force to mark the most important holiday on the North Korean political calendar.
Kim Jong-un said last year that improving the country’s military capabilities was a priority for the regime.
Priority among priorities: developing an ICBM capable of carrying several conventional or nuclear warheads, each following an independent trajectory, difficult to intercept by anti-missile systems.
“Kim probably feels that now is the perfect time to develop ICBMs, and to remind the world emphatically that the North, unlike Ukraine, is a nuclear-weapon country,” he told Reuters. AFP Ahn Chan-il, North Korea expert.