UNITED NATIONS — Eight days after North Korea’s rocket launch, the U.N. Security Council on Monday unanimously condemned the action, demanded an end to missile tests and said it will expand sanctions against the reclusive communist nation.
The council’s statement, agreed on by all 15 members and read at a formal meeting of the United Nations’ most powerful body, said the launch violated a council resolution adopted after the North conducted a nuclear test explosion in 2006 that banned any missile tests by the country.
The statement was a weaker response than a U.N. resolution, which was sought by Japan and the United States but was opposed by China and Russia. U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice insisted the statement is legally binding, just like a resolution — a view backed by Russia — but other diplomats and officials disagreed.
Japanese Ambassador Yukio Takasu, calling his country the most threatened by the rocket launch, said his government was “very pleased” by the unanimous message to North Korea that it conducted a “very provocative act” and violated the 2006 resolution.
North Korea warned earlier that any move to censure it at the U.N. could prompt its withdrawal from negotiations on dismantling the communist regime’s nuclear-weapons program. The North’s talks with the U.S., China, Japan, South Korea and Russia are currently stalled.
North Korea carried out the rocket launch in face of intense international pressure, saying it put a satellite in orbit as allowed under a U.N. space treaty.
The U.S., Japan and South Korea claimed North Korea was really testing long-range missile technology, in violation of the 2006 resolution.
The statement “condemns” the April 5 “launch” — without specifying whether it was a missile or a satellite — and demands that North Korea “not conduct further launches.”
In the statement, the council “agrees” to expand sanctions under the 2006 resolution, which ordered a financial freeze on assets belonging to companies and groups tied to North Korean programs for nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction and banned the sale of specific goods used in those programs.
