West News Wire: Kim Yo-jong, the influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, has asserted that the UN Security Council violated North Korea’s sovereignty by convening a meeting to address Pyongyang’s recent unsuccessful satellite launch. She claimed that Washington was approaching the council with “gangster-like” demands.
According to a statement made by Kim Yo-jong on Sunday and published by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the UNSC was guilty of “working as a political appendage of an individual country.”
She continued, calling the convening by the UNSC on Friday a “insult” to the UN Charter and a “undisguised disregard for and violation of the DPRK’s [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] sovereignty.”
Kim Yo-jong, a prominent member of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party, said that thousands of satellites have been launched by various countries and commercial firms, but “the UNSC is continuously taking discriminative and rude action to take issue with only the launch of a satellite by the DPRK.”
“The launch of a military reconnaissance satellite by the DPRK is a legal countermeasure to cope with the US and its vassal forces’ military threats,” she claimed.
Kim Yo-jong declared that Pyongyang would keep moving forward with improving its defence capabilities despite “illegal” sanctions and foreign pressure.
“Peace and security on the Korean Peninsula are guaranteed by the powerful self-defense capability of the DPRK, not by the resolution invented by the ‘political tool’ of the US,” she insisted.
Pyongyang is prohibited from deploying ballistic missile technology for any purpose, including satellite launches, by a UNSC resolution.
The US pushed other council members to join it in denouncing North Korea’s “illegal behaviour” during last week’s meeting. Washington urged the UNSC to ensure Pyongyang wouldn’t attempt to launch another satellite into orbit in the future.
Russia and China, meanwhile, have refrained from criticising Pyongyang, claiming that there are genuine security reasons behind its actions.
Last Wednesday, North Korea confirmed that a rocket carrying its Malligyong-1 military satellite had crashed into the Yellow Sea due to a malfunction of the second-stage engine.
Kim Yo-jong expressed her certainty that the DPRK’s military surveillance satellite would soon be correctly placed in orbit and begin its mission after the setback.
