UN Security Council emergency session condemns North Korea over its nuclear ambitions, with US saying 24 years of negotiations had failed.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Monday it was time for the UN Security Council to impose “the strongest possible measures” on North Korea over its sixth and largest nuclear test because “enough is enough.”
Haley said the incremental sanctions approach of the 15-member council to North Korea since 2006 had not worked and she described North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as “begging for war.”
“Despite our efforts the North Korea nuclear program is more advanced and more dangerous than ever,” Haley told the council.
“War is never something the United States wants. We don’t want it now. But our country’s patience is not unlimited.”
Haley detailed all the measures that the UN Security Council had taken in a bid to halt North Korea’s nuclear programme and missile launches.
She said that members of the UN Security Council had been very united and consistent in its condemnation against North Korea.
She said North Korea’s nuclear programme was more advanced than ever before, despite UN Security Council efforts over the past 24 years.
“Enough is enough. We have taken an incremental approach and despite the best of intentions it has not worked. Members of this council will no doubt urge negotiations and a return to talks. We have engaged in numerous direct and multilateral talks with the North Korean regime and time after time they have not worked.”
She said Kim Jong-un wanted to be acknowledged as a nuclear power.
“His abusive use of missiles and his nuclear threats show that he is begging for war.”
She said the US did not want war, but that US patience was not unlimited.
“We have kicked the can down the road long enough. There is no more road left.”
She said that the US would look at every country that does business with North Korea as being countries that are “giving aid to their dangerous and reckless nuclear intentions.”
Haley said that 24-year of negotiations had failed. “Twenty-four years of half measures and failed talks is enough.”
She said the US will present a new UN sanctions resolution to punish North Korea for its sixth nuclear test and aims to put it to a vote in a week.
TRT World’sSara Firth reports on the meeting.
“The United States will be circulating a resolution that we want to negotiate this week and vote on Monday.”
As Haley was calling for stronger diplomatic efforts to bring North Korea to order, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said that military solutions could not settle the Korean Peninsula issues and warned there was an “urgent need to maintain a cool head and refrain from any action that can escalate tensions.”
“A comprehensive settlement to the nuclear and other issues plaguing the Korean peninsula can be arrived at solely through political diplomatic channels, including by leveraging the mediation efforts of the United Nations secretary-general,” said Nebenzia.
Scrapping of limit
Earlier on Monday, South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his US counterpart Donald Trump agreed on Monday to scrap a warhead weight limit on South Korea’s missiles in the wake
Under the existing missile pact between the United States and South Korea, Seoul’s warheads currently face a cap of 500 kg (1100 lb).
The agreement, last amended in 2012, was in the process of being changed in the wake of a series of missile tests by North Korea this year after Moon took office in May, including two intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
An unlimited warhead weight allowance would enable the South to strike North Korea with greater force in the event of a military conflict.
The missiles would still be bound by a flight range cap of 800 km. No changes to the flight range were mentioned in the Blue House statement.
The two presidents made the decision in a phone call, a statement from the Blue House said.
Ten times more powerful
North Korea conducted its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sunday, which it said was an advanced hydrogen bomb for a long-range missile, prompting global condemnation and drawing a warning of a “massive” military response from the United States if it or its allies were threatened.
North Korea, which carries out its nuclear and missile programmes in defiance of UN resolutions and sanctions, said on state television the hydrogen bomb test ordered by leader Kim Jong-un had been a “perfect success.”
Hours before, North Korean state news agency KCNA released pictures showing Kim inspecting a silver, hourglass-shaped warhead during a visit to the North’s nuclear weapons institute.
The test had registered with international seismic agencies as a man-made earthquake near a test site. Japanese and South Korean officials said the tremor was about 10 times more powerful than the one picked up after North Korea’s previous nuclear test a year ago.
Pyongyang tested two ICBMs in July that potentially could fly about 10,000 km (6,200 miles), putting many parts of the US mainland within range and prompting a new round of tougher international sanctions.
