'Have Right To Self-Defence': North Korea Makes Rare UNSC Appearance, Defends Recent ICBM Launch

North Korean envoy Kim Song told the council that the missile test had no negative impact on any neighbouring country’s security. 

In a rare appearance, at the United Nations Security Council on Thursday, a North Korean envoy defended his country’s recent launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) calling it an exercise of its "right to self-defence". He further accused the United States of driving the situation in northeast Asia to the brink of nuclear war, as per an Associated Press report. Kim Song told the 15-member council that on Wednesday it tested the latest Hwasong-18 ICBM. He said that the missile had no negative impact on a neighbouring country’s security, possibly hinting South Korea's objection to its missile tests. 

Japan announced the ICBM as it flew at a steep angle and landed in open water right outside its exclusive economic zone.

This was the first time since December 2017, that North Korea – formally known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) – has spoken at a council meeting on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, diplomats said, as per AP. 

South Korea’s U.N. Ambassador Hwang Joon-kook said that North Korea’s repeated launches of ICBM allow the country to strengthen its goal of creating an arsenal of nuclear weapons. 

North Korea has been under UN sanctions for its nuclear programmes since 2006. This includes a ban on the development of ballistic missiles.

As per AP, right before the meeting, nine council members, including the US, Japan, and South Korea issued a statement condemning the recent ICBM launch and stressed that it was the 20th ballistic missile launch of the year and a violation of several Security Council resolutions, which ban these tests.

Meanwhile, in Pyongyang, Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un stated that the UN Security Council had called for the meeting to quarrel with her country while ignoring the US push to increase the danger of a nuclear war. In a statement, she called the council “a new Cold War mechanism totally inclined to the U.S. and the West”, reported AP. She also warned the US over its hostility towards the North and said that “very unlucky things will wait for the US”, however, she did not elaborate. She, however, did vow to build her country its "nuclear deterrence capability".

After North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions, adding a total of 10 sanctions, unsuccessfully. 

In December 2017, the last sanction resolution was adopted by the council, however, China and Russia rejected the US-sponsored resolution in May 2022. This would have imposed new sanctions over a series of intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

The 10 Security Council members said that it will not remain silent on North Korea and “that this behaviour is unlawful, destabilising, and will not be normalised.” It further urged all countries to call out the North over its illicit activities to generate revenue. But Russia and China remained opposed to any council action.

China’s envoy Zhang Jun took note of the missile launch and criticised the increased US military pressure on North Korea and the deployment of strategic weapons in the Korean Peninsula.

He said the US and other countries to which the North poses a threat are obsessed with sanctions which have put North Korea under  “existential pressure,” while the country’s legitimate concerns “have never been addressed”.