US calls for UN meeting on North Korea’s attempted satellite launch

The United States has called for a
U.N. Security Council meeting on Friday to discuss North Korea’s
attempted satellite launch this week, the spokesperson for the
U.S. mission to the United Nations said.
The launch on Wednesday was an attempt by North Korea to
put its first spy satellite into space, but it ended in failure,
with the booster and payload plunging into the sea.
Washington condemned the launch, saying it used ballistic
missile technology in violation of multiple U.N. Security
Council resolutions and risked destabilizing the security
situation in the region and beyond.
Nate Evans, the spokesperson for the U.S. mission to the
United Nations, said the United States had called for an open
meeting on the launch, which means the proceedings would be
streamed live.
Another U.N. diplomat said the call was made jointly with
Albania, Ecuador, France, Japan, Malta and Britain.
Following the failed launch, North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the
sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said her country would soon put a
military spy satellite into orbit and vowed that Pyongyang would
increase its military surveillance capabilities.
Speaking in Tokyo on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd
Austin said “North Korea’s dangerous and destabilizing nuclear
and missile programs threaten peace and stability in the
region.”
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said any launch by
Pyongyang using ballistic missile technology breaches Security
Council resolutions, a spokesperson said.
In her statement, Kim Yo Jong said the criticisms of the
launch were “self-contradiction” as the U.S. and other countries
have already launched “thousands of satellites.”