UNSC to N. Korea: Conduct Another Nuke Test and We'll 'Take Further Significant Measures'
(CNSNews.com) – Meeting urgently Wednesday to discuss Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, the U.N. Security Council agreed that it will now “take further significant measures” against North Korea, in line with a 2013 commitment to do so in the event of another test.
That 2013 undertaking was contained in a Security Council resolution passed after North Korea’s third nuclear test, on February 12 of that year.
North Korea announced Wednesday local time that it had carried out a fourth test, claiming to have successfully detonated a miniaturized hydrogen device for the first time – a claim some experts are questioning.
Wednesday’s Security Council response came in the form of a 138-word “press statement [1]” rather than a stronger “presidential statement.”
(At the U.N., a press statement is “a declaration to the media made by the president of the Security Council on behalf of all 15 members [and] issued as a United Nations press release” while a presidential statement is “a statement made by the president of the Security Council on behalf of the Council, adopted at a formal meeting of the Council and issued as an official document of the Council.”)
The statement cited four previous Security Council resolutions adopted since North Korea’s first nuclear test in 2006 – to little effect, self-evidently – and condemned the latest test as a violation of those earlier resolutions.
Council members “recalled that they have previously expressed their determination to take ‘further significant measures’ in the event of another DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] nuclear test, and in line with this commitment and the gravity of this violation, the members of the Security Council will begin to work immediately on such measures in a new Security Council resolution,” it said.
In a separate statement, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power called the nuclear test “a highly provocative act” and one that increases the risk of nuclear proliferation.
“North Korea is the only country in the world that has tested a nuclear weapon in the 21st century – not once, but, with yesterday’s test, four times,” she said. “It is also the only country in the world that routinely threatens other U.N. member states with nuclear attacks.”
Power said the international community must impose “real consequences” and called Wednesday’s Security Council press statement an important first step.
Secretary of State John Kerry said the United States “do[es] not and will not accept North Korea as a nuclear armed state, and actions such as this latest test only strengthen our resolve.”
He pledged to work closely with other members of the U.N. Security Council and the so-called six-party mechanism, “to take appropriate action.”
The six-party group comprises the U.S., South Korea, Japan, China, Russia and North Korea itself. It was established in 2003, in response to the discovery the previous year that Pyongyang had for years been cheating on a 1994 “Agreed Framework” denuclearization deal brokered by the Clinton administration.
During the Bush administration the six governments held multiple rounds of talks between 2003 and late 2008. They stalled amid disagreements over how to verify North Korea’s compliance with its commitments to shut down its illicit nuclear programs in return for U.S. and other foreign aid and diplomatic concessions.
Despite a number of initiatives and hopeful signs, no further six-party talks have been held since President Obama took office.
The late Kim Jong-il carried out underground nuclear tests in Oct. 2006 and May 2009, and his son and successor Kim Jong-un oversaw two more in Feb. 2013 and again this week.
Parallels with Iran?
Meanwhile House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Rep. Ed Royce (R-Calif.) was the latest member of Congress to draw links between the North Korean situation and attempts by the U.S. and others to resolve the dispute over Iran’s suspect nuclear program.
“Dictators like Kim Jong-un don’t take time outs, they take advantage when the U.S. looks away,” he said in a statement. “As Iran prepares to gain billions in sanctions relief, North Korea surely thinks it can intimidate the Obama administration into the same.”
Royce called for “more pressure, not less” on the Kim regime.
“The administration’s North Korea policy has proven a dramatic failure, and we urgently need a new approach.”
State Department spokesman John Kirby rejected any parallel between the North Korean and Iran nuclear issues.
“They’re entirely two different issues altogether,” he said during the department’s daily briefing.
“We consider the Iran deal as a completely separate issue handled in a completely different manner than were the – than was the Agreed Framework with North Korea.”
Kirby pointed out that the North Koreans have shown no interest in returning to the six-party talks. By contrast Iran, as a result of sanctions, did have an interest in negotiating, and had done so, he said.
Source URL:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/patrick-goodenough/nuke-test-un-security-council-says-it-will-make-good-earlier-pledge 
