North Korea on Tuesday deplored the condemnation by UN Secretary General António Guterres of North Korea’s recent missile launches and the call on Pyongyang to end the provocations and return to dialogue.
“We deeply regret that the UN Secretary General has issued an unfounded statement criticizing the DPRK [República Popular Democrática da Coreia, nome oficial do Norte] for his just self-defense response when dealing with US military provocations,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said.
Guterres acts as “Washington spokesperson”, which he finds “deplorable” as “The UN is a global organization based on justice and objectivity, so it should not be biased by the interests and visions of a great power,” the ministry said. in a statement quoted by the official KCNA news agency.
On Friday, the UN Secretary-General reiterated “his call on North Korea to immediately refrain from further provocations and fully comply with its international obligations under all relevant Security Council resolutions”, underlines Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for Guterres.
According to the statement, the secretary general is “deeply concerned about tensions in the Korean peninsula and uneasy about the emergence of confrontational rhetoric” and urged Pyongyang to “take immediate steps to resume negotiations”.
All parties involved, he added, should foster an environment conducive to dialogue.
Guterres’s comments came a day after North Korea launched three ballistic missiles, one of which triggered warnings in several regions of Japan, despite apparently failing to fly over the archipelago due to a mid-flight malfunction.
North Korea has launched more than 20 missiles in just two days in response to US-South Korea military exercises that were scheduled to end Friday but have been extended.
After the Allies’ announcement of the extension of the exercises, North Korea fired about 80 artillery shots on Thursday into a maritime “buffer zone” in the Kumkang area of Kangwon Province, on the country’s eastern coast.
The shootings are “a clear violation” of the 2018 inter-Korean agreement, which established these “buffer zones” to ease tensions between the two sides, South Korea’s joint chiefs of staff said.
On Friday, Japan announced it would upgrade its “J-Alert” system, which warns the public of emergencies such as missiles or earthquakes, following the latest missile launches from North Korea.
Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno made the announcement, following recent criticisms of the civilian warning system that was reportedly slow to respond to North Korea’s launch.
Source: DN
