North Korea 'condemns' UN Security Council meeting on its latest missile test

The United Nations Security Council meets at the UN headquarters in New York in this file photo dated Jan. 10. [AFP/YONHAP]

The United Nations Security Council held closed-door consultations on nonproliferation issues regarding North Korea on Thursday, in the wake of its recent military provocations and reports of arms trade with Russia.

The closed-door meeting was held at 10 a.m. Thursday among the council members, which, starting this year, includes South Korea.

"In-depth consultations took place," South Korean Ambassador to the UN Hwang Joon-kook told reporters following the meeting, according to Yonhap News. "Taking together North Korea's rhetoric and its action, the situation has gotten more serious, and all members are very concerned with respect to that."

The meeting was held in the wake of escalating tensions on the Korean Peninsula, as Pyongyang hardened its rhetoric against Seoul and exhibited closer relations with Moscow through official trips.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called for South Korea to be designated the regime's top enemy in the constitution of the country, according to a report in the official newspaper of the North's ruling party earlier this week.

The statement followed the North's launch of what it said was a solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile bearing a hypersonic warhead on Jan. 14.

Immediately following the test, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui visited Russia from Monday to Wednesday, meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and other officials.

Hwang had said at the end of last year that South Korea, as a non-permanent member to the UN Security Council from 2024 to 2025, would work with other members of the council including Japan and the United States to produce tangible results.

The council has been unable to produce any sanctions resolution on the North for its military provocations following the vetoes by Russia and China on a U.S.-drafted resolution in May 2022.

The nuclear envoys of South Korea, the United States and Japan met in Seoul on Thursday and called on the North to return to dialogue for denuclearization.

Foreign ministers of nearly 50 countries issued a joint statement earlier this month condemning the North for providing short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Both Pyongyang and Moscow have denied that arms shipments have taken place, but South Korean and U.S. officials have cited satellite reconnaissance of Rajin port in North Korea, which shows a significant number of containers being loaded onto Russia-bound ships, as circumstantial evidence of weapons being delivered to Russia.

On Sunday, North Korea's Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the UN Security Council meeting.

The Foreign Ministry, in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency, claimed that the latest hypersonic missile test was to conducted as a part of its regular efforts to bolster its defense capabilities and expressed "deep regret" that its "sovereign right" was discussed by the Security Council.

It claimed it didn't harm the security of neighboring countries and "had nothing to do with the present regional situation."

BY ESTHER CHUNG [chung.juhee@joongang.co.kr]