By Kang Seung-woo
The international community is on its way to slapping North Korea with another sanction for its test-fire of a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM), as a United Nations panel plans to determine whether the launch violated its resolutions.
U.N. resolutions ban the repressive state’s use of ballistic missile technology.
The North Korea Sanctions Committee reported its plan to the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) on Thursday. Should the committee conclude that the test-fire is a violation of UNSC resolutions, the Kim Jong-un regime may face more punishment. The North is already under a set of sanctions for its missile and nuclear tests.
Pyongyang announced earlier this month that it had successfully conducted a SLBM launch, ratcheting up tensions on the Korean Peninsula, and Seoul’s foreign ministry said Tuesday it had referred the incident to the U.N. committee for possible action.
Although the North’s SLBM is believed to pose a great threat to the United States as well as South Korea, when fully developed, experts estimate that the newly unveiled weapons are still years away from being put into service.
The committee was mixed on the issue at its meeting.
The U.S., Britain and other Western countries allegedly agreed on the importance of additional sanctions, claiming that the SLBM test violated U.N. resolutions.
However, China and Russia said that North Korean issues needed to be handled in an objective and neutral manner on the basis of denuclearization and reunification of the Korean Peninsula, without elaborating on the SLBM issue.
With the U.N. poised to launch an investigation, the North is likely to respond strongly to the action, which may eventually aggravate the ever-worsening inter-Korean ties.
Last week, the North’s National Defense Commission criticized the U.N. for yielding to the ”high-handed and arbitrary practices of the U.S., forgetful of its mission to ensure the global peace and security and its duty prescribed in the U.N. Charter.”
”Should the UNSC bring more sanctions on the North, hopes for inter-Korean rapprochement will fade out under President Park Geun-hye,” said Cheong Seong-chang, head of unification strategy research at the Sejong Institute.
He said the North might opt for a long-range missile or other military maneuvers, adding that joint celebrations of the June 15, 2000, inter-Korean summit and of Korea’s 1945 liberation from Japanese colonial rule were likely to be at stake.
In retaliation to the planned investigation, the North took issue at the UNSC with the ROK-U.S. military exercises, asking for an emergency meeting on the annual military exercises that it has denounced as a rehearsal for invasion of the North.
The reclusive state also asked the council to deal with the issue twice last year, but no formal discussions took place. The council can take up the matter only if there is a request from a council member.