The North's recent launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, "in addition to the more than 100 ballistic missile launches since 2022 to date, is a clear violation of multiple UN Security Council resolutions, jeopardizes international peace and security and threatens to undermine the global nonproliferation regime," said U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood in a joint statement on Tuesday.
"Denmark, Ecuador, France, Greece, Japan, Malta, Panama, [South Korea], Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States remain committed to diplomacy. We call on [North Korea] to return to negotiations, comply with its obligations under numerous UN Security Council resolutions and abandon its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs," the statement said.
The statement came after North Korea test-fired its new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) last week, followed by the launch of multiple short-range ballistic missiles into the East Sea on Tuesday, just hours before the U.S. presidential election.
But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko justified the launch during an interview with the country's state-run news agency TASS, claiming that it "comes as a response from our [North] Korean friends to what is happening around the Korean Peninsula and to that provocative activity the United States has been developing jointly with its allies. He added that it was a "legitimate measure" to ensure the North's defense capabilities.
The council has imposed a series of sanctions on North Korea since its first nuclear test in 2006 to deter its nuclear weapons programs and other provocations, but the lack of cooperation from China and Russia often makes sanctions against North Korea ineffective.
