UN Security Council asked to hold emergency meeting Sunday on North Korean rocket launch

By Jonathan Wachtel

Published February 06, 2016

United Nations Security Council diplomats told Fox News late Saturday that the United States, Japan and South Korea have requested an emergency meeting at 11 a.m. Sunday in response to North Korea’s long-range rocket launch.

U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, will take part in the Security Council session, which will be chaired by the Venezuelan Ambassador, likely Rafael Ramirez, in his capacity as president of the council this month.

Pyongyang has once again defied Security Council resolutions that ban the hermit nation from using ballistic technology. North Korea claims that the rocket is delivering a peaceful “Earth observation satellite.”

The launch comes as the Security Council debates a U.S.-Japan sponsored resolution condemning North Korea for its January 6 nuclear test, which Pyongyang claims was a hydrogen bomb test.

China, Russia and Venezuela, North Korea’s allies on the Security Council, have slowed the pace of bringing the draft resolution, which would impose further sanctions on Pyongyang, to a vote.

The January nuclear test was North Korea’s fourth. The other tests took place in 2006, 2009, and 2013. Each test was followed by long-range rocket launches, raising concerns that North Korea is perfecting its military arsenal with the intention of producing warheads for intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach the United States.

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/world/un-security-council-asked-to-hold-emergency-meeting-sunday-on-north-korean-rocket-launch