(Presidentialwire.com)- As Washington pushes for U.N. condemnation of the North’s most recent ICBM launch, the prominent sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned the United States on Tuesday that it will face “a more grave security crisis.”
Hours before Kim Yo Jong’s threat, U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield informed the U.N. Security Council at an emergency meeting that the U.S. would distribute a planned presidential statement denouncing North Korea’s prohibited missile launches and other destabilizing actions. Following the meeting, Thomas-Greenfield also read a statement from 14 nations endorsing steps to stop North Korea from moving forward with its nuclear development.
The United States was criticized for issuing what Kim Yo Jong, widely regarded as the second most powerful person in North Korea after her brother, called “a disgusting joint statement” with countries like Britain, France, Australia, Japan, and South Korea.
The United States, according to Kim, is like “a barking dog seized with fear.” She claimed North Korea would view the American-led statement as “a grave political provocation and a wanton breach of our sovereignty.”
She said in a statement carried by state media that the United States should be mindful that no matter how desperately it may seek to disarm North Korea, it can never deprive its right to self-defense and that the more hell-bent it gets on the anti-North Korean acts, the fatal security crisis it will face.
The U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday was called in response to North Korea’s ICBM launch on Friday. It was one series of provocative missile tests this year that experts say are intended to upgrade North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and give it more negotiating power in the future. Its most lethal Hwasong-17 missile was used in Friday’s test. Some experts claim that the successful steep-angle launch demonstrated that it could strike any place in the U.S. mainland if shot at a conventional trajectory.
During the Security Council meeting, the United States and its allies fiercely denounced the ICBM launch and demanded that the North Korean nuclear and missile programs be curtailed. However, any more pressure or sanctions on North Korea were resisted by Russia and China, both of which are Security Council members with veto power. The two nations blocked a U.S.-led effort to impose more severe sanctions on North Korea in May because of the latter’s previous ballistic missile tests, which are forbidden by U.N. Security Council resolutions.
North Korea has launched an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in response to the U.N. Security Council’s discussion of its ICBM launch, which it says is “clearly the application of double standards.”
North Korea may soon perform its first nuclear test in five years, which raises concerns about its nuclear arsenal.
