PRESS RELEASE : The Security Council must take action against North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes: UK statement at the UN Security Council [May 2024]
The press release issued by the Foreign Office on 31 May 2024.
Statement by Fergus Eckersley, UK Political Counsellor, at the Security Council meeting on DPRK.
On Monday, the DPRK launched a military satellite for the fourth time. The launch failed, but make no mistake this remains a flagrant violation of this Council’s resolutions. It also recklessly endangered Japanese civilians; the launch triggered missile warnings in Okinawa and missile debris fell into Japan’s territorial waters.
The next day, the DPRK fired a volley of eighteen short-range ballistic missiles. This again violated multiple resolutions of this Council; the highest number of missiles fired in a single launch yet.
President, the UK once again reiterates that this Council must take action. Such flagrant violations of Council resolutions cannot be ignored, nor can they be explained away by false equivalence with defensive military exercises. Some Council members have argued that our inaction will somehow help the situation, that if anything we need to reduce our scrutiny and pressure on the DPRK’s illegal weapons programme. Well, that approach has categorically failed. They have blocked meaningful action to address the DPRK’s activity and it has simply got worse. Their support for DPRK has not secured compliance with this Council’s resolutions. It has led to more instability in the region and more disruption to the proliferation rules that keep us all safe.
But it goes beyond that, we are particularly disturbed to hear reports that Russian technicians may have assisted the DPRK with its space programme, following the Russian President’s pledge last year to help the DPRK with its space activities.
And we deplore the evidence found by members of the Panel of Experts that Russia is using the DPRK’s missiles in its illegal war in Ukraine.
Deliberately undermining the global non-proliferation regime and this Council’s authority is a risk to all of us.
President, the DPRK is engaged in a long-term programme of military activity, involving massive use of state resources at the expense of its people. We remain deeply concerned by the humanitarian situation in the country, and I encourage the DPRK to reopen its borders and engage with the UN and its agencies.
The United Kingdom calls on the DPRK to refrain from further launches, return to dialogue and abandon their nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.
And we call on all members of this Council to address those threats responsibly and to uphold their commitment to upholding the global non-proliferation regime.
