North Korea Fires ‘Projectiles’ Hours After UN Sanctions
KABUL: (MEP) North Korea has fired six short-range projectiles into the sea just hours after the UN Security Council approved the harshest sanctions on Pyongyang in two decades for its recent nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, South Korea’s defence ministry said.
The projectiles were fired at about 10:00 local time (01:00 GMT) from Wonsan on the east coast, a South Korean spokesman told the Yonhap news agency.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye has been tough in her response to the North’s recent actions, moving from her earlier self-described “trustpolitik” approach, and on Thursday welcomed the move by the Security Council and repeated her call for the North to change its behavior.
“We will cooperate with the world to make the North Korean regime abandon its reckless nuclear development and end tyranny that oppresses freedom and human rights of our brethren in the North,” Park said at a Christian prayer meeting on Thursday.
The resolution, which dramatically expands existing sanctions, follows North Korea’s latest nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a Feb. 7 rocket launch that Washington and its allies said used banned ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the sanctions go further than any U.N. sanctions regime in two decades and aim to cut off funds for North Korea’s nuclear and other banned weapons programs.
The projectiles could be missiles, artillery or rockets, according to the defence ministry.
Last month, it put a satellite into orbit with a long-range rocket that the United Nations and others see as a cover for a test of banned ballistic missile technology.
The new UN sanctions include mandatory inspections of cargo leaving and entering North Korea by land, sea or air; a ban on all sales or transfers of small arms and light weapons to Pyongyang; and expulsion of diplomats from the North who engage in “illicit activities”.
The United States and North Korea’s long-standing ally China spent seven weeks discussing the new sanctions.
