The G7 condemned this Sunday the new launch by the North Korean dictatorship of a short-range ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan and demanded a rapid response from the international community.
“North Korea’s reckless behavior calls for a rapid and unified response from the international community, including significant new steps by the United Nations Security Council,” the foreign ministers of the United States, Germany, Canada, France, and France said in a statement. Italy, Japan and the United Kingdom.
Along with the high representative of the EU, they criticized the “stark contrast between the frequency of repeated and flagrant violations” of UN Security Council resolutions by North Korea and the “corresponding inaction” of that Council due to the “obstruction” of some of its members.
This latest North Korean launch, they added, “undermines regional and international peace and security.”
“Our military detected a short-range ballistic missile fired from the Tongchang-ri area in North Pyongan province at 11:05 a.m. (0205 GLM)” toward the Sea of Japan, the Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (EMS) said. from the south.
The missile traveled 800 kilometers and is being scrutinized by US and South Korean intelligenceaccording to the EME.
“Our military maintains a fully-ready posture based on its ability to overwhelmingly respond to any provocation from North Korea, while also conducting joint exercises and maneuvers,” it added.
Japan also confirmed the release.
South Korea and the United States have strengthened their defense cooperation in the face of growing military and nuclear threats from Pyongyangwhich in recent months has launched a series of tests of prohibited weapons and maintains an increasingly bellicose tone.
Washington and Seoul are in the midst of the largest joint military rehearsal in five years, an 11-day exercise dubbed Freedom Shield. Kim Jong-un’s regime perceives these exercises as preparations for an invasion and has warned of an “overwhelming” response.
Pyongyang’s new test comes after the North Korean regime launched a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Thursday.
The G7 representatives stressed that since last year it has carried out a record number of ballistic missile launches and has increased the tension with its “continued irresponsible and destabilizing rhetoric on the use of nuclear weapons.”
At the beginning of this year, as they recalled, the country publicly declared its intention to continue expanding and improving “its illegal nuclear and missile programs.”
“We reiterate our demand that it abandon its nuclear weapons, existing nuclear programs and any other weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner,” they said.
The G7 urged it to fulfill its obligations under the relevant United Nations Security Council (UNSCR) resolutions and called on all UN states to in turn implement those resolutions effectively.
“North Korea cannot and will never have the status of a nuclear-weapon state in accordance with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” the foreign ministers stressed.
With information from EFE and AFP
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Source-www.infobae.com