US calls for UNSC action against N. Korean ICBM test, but China, Russia veto

WASHINGTON -- The United States and 12 other members of the United Nations Security Council unsuccessfully sought to hold North Korea accountable for its recent long-range missile test Thursday due to opposition from China and Russia.

North Korea, making its first appearance at a UNSC meeting since 2017, also rejected international condemnation of its missile launch, insisting that it was a legitimate test that had no effect on the security of any neighboring nation.

Thursday's UNSC meeting came after North Korea fired a solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile on Wednesday, its fourth ICBM test and second solid fuel ICBM launch this year.

"The United States condemns, in the strongest possible terms, the DPRK's July 12 intercontinental ballistic missile launch," a US envoy to the United Nations told a UNSC meeting held in New York, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"It is alarming, albeit hardly surprising that we find ourselves back in the council responding to yet another unlawful DPRK intercontinental ballistic missile launch," the US diplomat added. "It is alarming because the DPRK has now launched 20 ballistic missiles in 2023, including four ICBMs."

Pyongyang has fired 89 ballistic missiles since the start of 2022, despite multiple UNSC resolutions that prohibit it from developing or using ballistic missile technologies.

"The sheer number of these ballistic missile launches over the past year and a half should not erode our capacity to meaningfully respond to nuclear proliferation," the US envoy said.

"We call today on all council members to join us in denouncing the DPRK's unlawful behavior, to fully implement all Security Council resolutions in order to curb the DPRK's generation of revenue for its WMD and ballistic missile programs," he added.

China, the largest supporter of North Korea and a veto power-wielding permanent member of the Security Council, refused to hold North Korea accountable, instead accusing the US of escalating tension on the Korean Peninsula through its joint military exercises with South Korea.

"China has taken note of the DPRK's recent launch. Meanwhile, we are also concerned about the heightened military pressure and repeated dispatches of strategic weapons by a certain country to carry out military activities on the Korean Peninsula," China's envoy to the UN told the meeting through an interpreter.

"The US and other countries have long regarded the DPRK as a security threat and are obsessed with ... pressurization, which has put the DPRK under enormous security threat and existential pressure, and the DPRK's legitimate security concerns have never been addressed," the Chinese diplomat added.

Russia, another long-time supporter of North Korea and a permanent member of the UNSC, repeated the argument.

"This meeting was convened by the United States, Albania, France, Japan, Malta, and the United Kingdom regarding a missile launch, but we must once again draw attention to the actions of the US, the Republic of Korea and Japan who, as part of their concept of so-called extended deterrence, continue to increase the scale of their regional exercises and their military cooperation," a Russian envoy to the UN said, speaking through an interpreter.

North Korea's envoy to the UN employed a similar tactic, accusing the US of escalating nuclear tension on the Korean Peninsula.

"Our test fire of a new type of ICBM had no inevitable effect on the security of a neighboring country,' the North Korean diplomat insisted, noting the ICBM fired earlier this week fell into the water between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.

North Korea earlier said its missile flew 1,001 kilometers at a maximum altitude of 6,648 km.

"We categorically reject and condemn the convening of the Security Council briefing by the United States and its follows," the North Korean envoy said, arguing that US-South Korea joint military exercises are aimed at invading North Korea, which he said will bring a nuclear war to the Korean Peninsula.

The Security Council meeting adjourned without a vote. (Yonhap)