Kim Yo Jong, politician and sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Photo / AP
The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned the United States that it would face “a more fatal security crisis” as Washington pushes for UN condemnation of the North’s recent intercontinental ballistic missile test.
Kim Yo Jong’s warning came hours after US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that the US will circulate a proposed presidential statement condemning North Korea’s banned missile launches and other destabilising activities. After the meeting, Thomas-Greenfield also read a statement by 14 countries which supported action to limit North Korea’s advancement of its weapons programmes.
Kim Yo Jong, who is widely considered North Korea’s second most powerful person after her brother, lambasted the United States for issuing what she called “a disgusting joint statement together with such rabbles as Britain, France, Australia, Japan and South Korea”.
Kim compared the United States to “a barking dog seized with fear”. She said North Korea would consider the US-led statement “a wanton violation of our sovereignty and a grave political provocation”.
“The US should be mindful that no matter how desperately it may seek to disarm [North Korea], it can never deprive [North Korea] of its right to self-defence and that the more hell-bent it gets on the anti-[North Korea] acts, it will face a more fatal security crisis,” she said on state media.
Monday’s UN Security Council meeting was convened in response to North Korea’s ICBM launch on Friday, which was part of a provocative run of missile tests this year that experts say is designed to modernise its nuclear arsenal and increase its leverage in future diplomacy. Friday’s test involved its most powerful Hwasong-17 missile, and some experts say the successful steep-angle launch proved its potential to strike anywhere in the US mainland if it’s fired at a standard trajectory.
During the Security Council meeting, the United States and its allies strongly criticised the ICBM launch and called for action to limit North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes. But Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the Security Council, opposed any new pressure and sanctions on North Korea. In May, the two countries vetoed a US-led attempt to toughen sanctions on North Korea over its earlier ballistic missile tests, which are prohibited by UN Security Council resolutions.
North Korea has said its testing activities are legitimate exercises of its right to self-defence in response to regular military drills between the United States and South Korea which it views as an invasion rehearsal. Washington and Seoul officials say the exercises are defensive in nature.
Kim Yo Jong said the fact that North Korea’s ICBM launch was discussed at the Security Council is “evidently the application of double-standards” by the UN body because it “turned blind eyes” to the US-South Korean military drills. She said North Korea won’t tolerate any attempt to undermine its right to self-defence and will take “the toughest counteraction to the last” to protect its national security.
On Monday, North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, called UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “a puppet of the United States”.
There are concerns that North Korea may soon conduct its first nuclear test in five years.
The status of North Korea’s nuclear capability remains shrouded in secrecy. Some analysts say North Korea already has nuclear-armed missiles that can strike the US mainland and its allies South Korea and Japan, but others say the North is still years away from possessing such missiles.