NEW YORK: The United States’ decision by China and Russia to veto new UN sanctions on North Korea has torn any veneer of global cooperation, undermining efforts to pressure Pyongyang as it tests nuclear. Wants a new preparation to do.
Publicly splitting the UN Security Council for the first time since Pyongyang began punishing in 2006, the two countries on Thursday called for more US-led sanctions on North Korea over its new ballistic missile launch at the United Nations. The push was vetoed.
US officials slammed it as a “sharp departure from the council’s track record of collective action on the issue”.
“Today’s vote means North Korea will feel more free to take further action,” Jeffrey Prescott, deputy to the US ambassador to the United Nations, said on Twitter. “But we cannot resign ourselves to this fate which would be very dangerous.” Russia’s UN ambassador called the resolution a “road to a dead end”, while China’s envoy said it would only lead to “negative effects and escalation of confrontation”. Analysts and some diplomats said Washington may have miscalculated in its haste to impose the results of North Korea’s missile tests.
“I think it was a big mistake on the part of the US to show united opposition to North Korea’s actions,” said Jenny Towns, director of America’s 38 North program that monitors North Korea. “In the current political climate, the idea that China and Russia can agree on anything with the US would have sent a strong signal to Pyongyang.” A European diplomat said his country supported the US proposal, but he was less appreciative of the time and thought Washington should wait until North Korea conducts a new nuclear test.
The United States assessed that North Korea had tested six intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) this year and was “actively preparing to conduct a nuclear test”, which would be the country’s first since 2017.
Published in Dawn, May 28, 2022