North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son-hui, has called U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “a puppet of the United States”. She criticized the United Nations chief for joining U.S.-led condemnation of her country’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile test.
Previously, United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, publicized a statement which strongly condemned North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile launch and reiterated his call on the North to “to immediately desist from taking any further provocative actions.”
Guterres’s statement came after the United States and other countries had issued similar criticism of North Korea’s missile test.
“I often take the U.N. Secretary-General for a member of the U.S. White House or its State Department. I express my strong regret over the fact that the U.N. Secretary-General has taken a very deplorable attitude, oblivious of the purpose and principles of the U.N. Charter and its proper mission which is to maintain impartiality, objectivity and equity in all matters.”
North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son-hui
Moreover, Choe accused Guterres of overlooking the U.S. and its allies taking the North Korea’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) test to the U.N. Security Council, mentioning that “This clearly proves that he is a puppet of the U.S.”
U.N Security Council Schedules Emergency Meeting
The United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for Monday, November 21, 2022, on North Korea’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) launch at Japan’s request.
However, it is uncertain if it can impose new economic sanctions on North Korea because China and Russia, two of the council’s veto-wielding members, opposed the previous United States and its allies’ moves to strengthen sanctions on the North over its banned tests of ballistic missiles earlier this year.
On Sunday, November 20, 2022, top diplomats from the world’s major industrialized democracies publicized a joint statement asking for strong steps by the United Nations Security Council in response to the North Korean missile launch.
The statement by foreign ministers from the Group of Seven nations; Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States disclosed, “(North Korea’s) actions demand a united and robust response by the international community, including the need for further significant measures to be taken by the U.N. Security Council.”
Friday’s (November 18, 2022) missile launch was the latest in North Korea’s ongoing run of missile tests that experts claim is meant to boost its nuclear capability and increase its leverage in future diplomacy.
North Korea leader, Kim Jong Un, observed Friday’s launch of the Hwasong-17 missile and called it another “reliable and maximum-capacity” weapon to contain U.S. military threats.
Some experts say the Hwasong-17 is still under development but it is the North Korea’s longest-range missile and is designed to carry several nuclear warheads to overcome United State missile defense systems.
North Korea argued that its testing activities are a warning to the United States and South Korea over their (United States and South Korea’s) series of military drills that the North believes are an invasion rehearsal.
United States and South Korea have maintained that their exercises are defensive in nature.
In her statement on Monday, November 21, 2022, Choe again defended her country’s missile tests, calling them “legitimate and just exercise of the right to self-defense” against “provocative nuclear war rehearsals” by the United States and its allies.
She disclosed that it is “most amazing and deplorable to me” as Guterres still blamed North Korea for a recent flare-up in tensions on the Korean Peninsula, not the United States.
Prior to the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile test, Choe had threatened to launch “fiercer” military responses to the attempts made by the United States to reinforce its security commitment to South Korea and Japan.
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