UNITED NATIONS — The United States and its allies clashed with Russia and China on Friday, June 2, 2023, over North Korea’s failed launch of a military spy satellite this week in violation of multiple United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions, which Moscow and Beijing refused to condemn.
The confrontation was the latest over the North’s escalating nuclear, ballistic missile and military programs, which US deputy ambassador Robert Wood warned are threatening international peace and security. The failed launch “not only disrupted maritime and air traffic in the region, but it also caused alarm for its neighbors in Japan and the Republic of Korea,” he said.
Pyongyang is threatening another launch soon.
The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years in a total of 10 resolutions seeking — so far unsuccessfully — to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and cut off funding. In the last sanctions resolution adopted by the council in December 2017, members committed to further restricting petroleum exports to North Korea if it conducted a ballistic missile launch capable of reaching intercontinental ranges.
China and Russia vetoed a US-sponsored resolution in May 2022 that would have imposed new sanctions, including on petroleum exports, over a spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches. Since then, they have blocked any council action including press statements.
UN political chief Rosemary DiCarlo told the council the last time North Korea conducted a similar satellite launch to Wednesday’s failed attempt was on Feb. 7, 2016 and it was condemned by the Security Council.
“The lack of unity and action in the Security Council does little to slow the negative trajectory on the Korean Peninsula,” she said, and North Korea “is unconstrained, and other parties are compelled to focus on military deterrence.”
But North Korea’s neighbor and ally China and Russia, which has drawn closer to Pyongyang since the war in Ukraine, blamed the West and especially the United States for the current tensions. / AP