Envoy to UN says Washington is 'picking on' Pyongyang

Kim Song, North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s 77th session on Monday in New York. [UNITED NATIONS]

North Korea's ambassador to the United Nations blamed the United States for maintaining "a vicious cycle of tension and confrontation" by conducting military exercises on the peninsula.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Monday, Ambassador Kim Song noted that U.S.-North Korea tensions are “heading into a much more dangerous phase” and referred to U.S. President Joe Biden’s address to the body on Sept. 21 as evidence that Washington is “picking on” Pyongyang by criticizing its continued violations of United Nations sanctions.

The United Nations Security Council, which is comprised of ten rotating members and five veto-wielding permanent members – the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia – has passed eight resolutions between 2006 and 2017 either sanctioning or strengthening trade restrictions on North Korea.

“To put it clearly, we have never recognized such ‘resolutions’ of the United Nations that impose pressure because we do not abide by its ‘rules’ made by the United States unilaterally,” Kim said.

The North Korean ambassador argued that the North has been singled out among several countries that possess nuclear weapons for “the most brigandish and brutal” sanctions because the international body “connived” with the United States in “antagonizing the independent DPRK,” referring to his country by the acronym for its official name, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

All Security Council resolutions sanctioning North Korea were passed with support from China and Russia, the country’s traditional allies.

Kim also referred to ongoing joint naval exercises by the United States and South Korea in the East Sea as “an extremely dangerous act of igniting the fuse to drive the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of war.”

He added, “The United States should clearly understand that its heinous and hostile policy against the DPRK over the past 30 years had just brought about today’s reality and ask and answer itself and ponder over how far it would prolong this situation in the future.”

Kim’s speech, which last 18 minutes, made no mention of South Korea.

South Korea and the United States began their first combined naval exercise in five years on Monday, a day after North Korea conducted a ballistic missile launch and just before Kim’s speech at the General Assembly.

“This exercise was prepared to demonstrate the strong will of the South Korea-US alliance to respond to North Korean provocations,” the South Korean Navy said in a press release about the drill.

A U.S. naval strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan arrived in Busan last Friday to join the exercise and departed Monday to the East Sea for the joint exercise with a South Korean naval contingent.

The U.S. carrier’s arrival followed a joint pledge by South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol and U.S. President Joe Biden during a summit in Seoul in May to deploy U.S. strategic assets to South Korea.

Observers believe the North’s short-range ballistic missile launch on Sunday morning was a response to the allies’ joint naval exercises, and particularly the arrival of the Ronald Reagan in Busan.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]