North Korea missile test: Pyongyang says US, UNSC 'tampering with dangerous time bomb'

Following an emergency meeting over North Korea’s recent ballistic missile test, Pyongyang said that the US and the UNSC were “tampering with a dangerous time bomb”. North Korea successfully tested a new submarine-launched ballistic missile (SBLM) on Tuesday. According to KCNA, the missile had “advanced control guidance technologies” which could make it challenging to track. 

On Wednesday, the UNSC held a closed-door meeting to discuss North Korea in the wake of the test. On the sidelines of the meeting, North Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the US had taken “provocative moves” by calling for an emergency meeting of the UNSC. It added that Pyongyang is “truly concerned” over what it termed an “abnormal” reaction by the US over a rightful exercise of its defence rights.

According to the state-run media outlet, the North Korean ministry informed that during the recent test-firing, Pyongyang did not have the US in mind nor aimed at it, but it said that it is the work that had already been planned purely for the defence of the country. “So there is no need for the US to worry or trouble itself over the test-firing,” North Korea’s Foreign Ministry added. 

Further, North Korea noted that the US already possesses submarine-launched ballistic missile systems and said that Washington’s actions are exposing its double standards. The secretive nation also noted that criticising the country for testing the same weaponry that the US owns only raises the North’s suspicion about the sincerity of the Biden administration’s claims of harbouring no hostility toward Pyongyang. 

US, EU urges NKorea to stop ‘reckless provocations’ 

Meanwhile, US and three members of the EU, on the other hand, condemned North Korea’s recent missile test and called for UN sanctions on Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs and its economic activities. US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Wednesday urged North Korea to stop its “reckless provocations” that violate UNSC sanctions resolutions. Linda also made it clear that the United States has “no hostile intent toward the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK)”. 

Separately, three members of the European Union - Ireland, France and Estonia - said that North Korea’s ballistic missile test “forms part of a pattern of provocations by the DPRK” in recent weeks. The three EU nations said that Pyonyang’s new submarine missile launch “underlines the continued enhancement of the nuclear and ballistic program of the DPRK, which stated the ambition to ultimately acquire sea-based nuclear capabilities”. They went on to urge North Korea to immediately end its “destabilizing actions and take concrete steps to abandon its ballistic missiles” and other weapons of mass destruction including its nuclear program “in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner”.

(Image: AP)