US and its Allies Clash with North Korea, China and Russia over Failed Satellite Launch, Tensions

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the war in Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the war in Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
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US and its Allies Clash with North Korea, China and Russia over Failed Satellite Launch, Tensions

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the war in Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. (AP)
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, speaks after a meeting of the United Nations Security Council to discuss the war in Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023, at United Nations headquarters. (AP)

The United States and its allies clashed Friday with North Korea, Russia and China over Pyongyang’s failed attempts to launch a spy satellite and who is responsible for escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

The open Security Council meeting called by the US, Albania, Ecuador, France, Japan and Malta to condemn the attempted launch, which used banned ballistic missile technology, was attended by North Korea’s United Nations ambassador for just the second time since 2017.

Ambassador Kim Song, who also addressed the council in July, told members the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea — the country’s official name — has “an independent and legitimate right” as a sovereign country to launch a satellite for “self-defense to deter the ever-increasing hostile military acts of the United States and its followers.”

The North’s space agency said Thursday its reconnaissance satellite, Malligyong-1, failed for a second time to go into orbit, blaming an error in its third-stage flight. Pyongyang said it will make a third attempt in October to achieve a key military goal of its leader, Kim Jong Un.

US Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said the DPRK had again defied Security Council resolutions by pursuing its unlawful ballistic missile program. She said 13 of the 15 Security Council members oppose the DPRK’s unlawful actions and have called for an end to the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons and its tests — and for unity of the council.

Song said the DPRK has never recognized Security Council resolutions, which he claimed infringe on “the rights of a sovereign state and will never be bound by them in the future.”

He accused the United States and South Korea’s “military gangsters” of “turning the Korean Peninsula into a potential area of an immense thermal nuclear war” while clamoring for regime change in the DPRK and waging large-scale joint military exercises that he said feature “nuclear preemptive strikes on our state as a fait accompli.”

Russia’s UN Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called the council meeting “a cynical, hypocritical attempt by the US and its allies to step up pressure on Pyongyang and to detract attention from the reckless escalatory actions of Washington and its allies in the region, who represent the real sources of threats to international peace and security.”

He called the expansion of US-led military exercises “blatantly provocative,” saying they further complicate prospects for starting a dialogue, which is necessary to strengthen regional security.

China’s deputy UN ambassador Geng Shuang accused the United States of “a long-standing hostile policy towards the DPRK,” telling the council that Washington's continuous pressure, including sending a nuclear-armed submarine to the peninsula in July, makes the North feel “increasingly insecure.”

He said the Security Council should not intensify tension but take practical actions to respond to the DPRK’s legitimate concerns and create conditions to relaunch talks.

Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador, rejected “the disingenuous claims by Russia and China that the US is acting in a hostile manner,” calling the military exercises routine, lawful and defensive.

“And unlike the DPRK’s ballistic missile launches, they are not prohibited by UN Security Council resolutions,” she said.

Thomas-Greenfield also reiterated the US commitment to diplomacy, saying that the Biden administration publicly and privately has repeatedly urged the DPRK to engage in dialogue without preconditions. “But the DPRK has still not responded to our offers,” she said.

China’s Geng retorted that the military exercises are “at a record level,” pointing to US bombers and Marines taking part, and noting more US sanctions on the DPRK. “I would like to ask in this context, how can the dialogue be really resumed?” he said.

The council meeting also saw a heated exchange between Japan and the DPRK and China over Tokyo’s release of treated radioactive water from the tsunami-wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean.

North Korea’s Song first raised the issue, saying the Security Council should denounce “Japan’s heinous crime against humanity,” which he said is jeopardizing the safety and security of all people and the marine ecological environment.

Japan’s UN Ambassador Kimihiro Ishikane rejected the “baseless allegations,” saying that scientific evidence has said the discharges are safe.

But China’s Geng, whose country has banned seafood from Japan, reiterated Beijing’s strong opposition, saying the discharge of “nuclear-contaminated water” into the ocean is “transferring the nuclear threat to the whole world.”



Rutte: Russian Victory Over Ukraine Would Have Costly Impact on NATO's Credibility

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gives a joint press conference with Finland's president and Estonia's prime minister during the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki, Finland, 14 January 2025.  EPA/KIMMO BRANDT
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gives a joint press conference with Finland's president and Estonia's prime minister during the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki, Finland, 14 January 2025. EPA/KIMMO BRANDT
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Rutte: Russian Victory Over Ukraine Would Have Costly Impact on NATO's Credibility

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gives a joint press conference with Finland's president and Estonia's prime minister during the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki, Finland, 14 January 2025.  EPA/KIMMO BRANDT
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gives a joint press conference with Finland's president and Estonia's prime minister during the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki, Finland, 14 January 2025. EPA/KIMMO BRANDT

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned on Thursday that a Russian victory over Ukraine would undermine the dissuasive force of the world’s biggest military alliance and that its credibility could cost trillions to restore.
NATO has been ramping up its forces along its eastern flank with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment to deter Moscow from expanding its war into the territory of any of the organization’s 32 member countries.
“If Ukraine loses then to restore the deterrence of the rest of NATO again, it will be a much, much higher price than what we are contemplating at this moment in terms of ramping up our spending and ramping up our industrial production,” the Associated Press quoted Rutte as saying.
“It will not be billions extra; it will be trillions extra,” he said, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Rutte insisted that Ukraine’s Western backers must “step up and not scale back the support” they are providing to the country, almost three years after Russia’s full-fledged invasion began.
“We have to change the trajectory of the war,” Rutte said, adding that the West “cannot allow in the 21st century that one country invades another country and tries to colonize it."
"We are beyond those days,” he said.
Anxiety in Europe is mounting that US President Donald Trump might seek to quickly end the war in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on terms that are unfavorable to Ukraine, but Rutte appeared wary about trying to do things in a hurry.
“If we got a bad deal, it would only mean that we will see the president of Russia high-fiving with the leaders from North Korea, Iran and China and we cannot accept that,” the former Dutch prime minister said. “That would be geopolitically a big, big mistake.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski welcomed Trump's acknowledgement that it must be Russia which should make the first peace moves, but he cautioned that “this is not the Putin that President Trump knew in his first term.”
On Wednesday, Trump threatened to impose stiff taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Moscow if an agreement isn’t reached to end the war, but that warning will probably fall on deaf ears in the Kremlin. Russia's economy is already weighed down by a multitude of US and European sanctions.
Sikorksi warned that Putin should not be put at the center of the world stage over Ukraine.
“The president of the United States is the leader of the free world. Vladimir Putin is an outcast and an indicted war criminal for stealing Ukrainian children,” Sikorski said.
"I would suggest that Putin has to earn the summit, that if he gets it early, it elevates him beyond his, significance and gives him the wrong idea about the trajectory of this,” he said.