Agency Report

The United States has requested an emergency meeting on Thursday of the UN Security Council on North Korea, which launched its most powerful missile since 2017 last weekend, diplomatic sources said Tuesday.

The meeting is expected to be held behind closed doors. It is up to Russia, the president of the Security Council for the month of February, to confirm the timing.

North Korea confirmed on Monday it had fired a Hwasong-12 “ground-to-ground intermediate- and long-range ballistic missile,” in its first test since 2017 of a weapon that powerful.

Earlier Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres denounced the launch as “a clear violation of Security Council resolutions.”

The test on Sunday was North Korea’s seventh in January — the most ever carried out by the country in a calendar month, raising fears Pyongyang could renew nuclear and intercontinental missile tests.

The test broke a 2018 moratorium by Pyongyang.

In 2017, the UN Security Council on three occasions decided unanimously to impose new heavy economic sanctions on Pyongyang for its nuclear and missile tests.

The sanctions, the Council’s latest show of unity over North Korea, target the country’s oil imports as well as its coal, iron, textile or fishing exports.

AFP