The United States Ambassador to the United Nations (Nikki Haley) said on Monday that the North Korean regime is “begging for war,” according to the Chicago Tribune. The statement was given at a U.N. Security Council emergency meeting following the latest missile launch by North Korea. The fired missile crossed the Japanese island of Hokkaido and fell into the sea broken into three parts. According to some military experts, the missile is likely to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.
The subterranean nuclear test carried out by the regime on Sunday heated up the discussions.
According to NPR, the strongest test ever in the country recorded a 6.3-magnitude earthquake. Still, the publication explains that the former tests were in the tens of kilotons range, what corresponds to the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Now, the North Koreans claim to have developed state-of-the-art hydrogen nuclear weapons, putting the regime on equal terms with other nuclear powers. Such weapons can generate blasts in the range of hundreds of kilotons.
Objections from Russia and China
While the United States pushes for new sanctions against North Korea, Russia and China propose a different course of action. The two countries, as permanent members of the Security Council, hold the power of veto and would hardly be influenced by the U.S.
alone. Russia says that the sanctions are already tough and a further strengthening could be “dangerous.”
Russia and China share a border with North Korea and both have strategic reasons to avoid any conflict on the Korean Peninsula. At the meeting on Monday, according to the Chicago Tribune, the Chinese Ambassador to the United Nations (Liu Jieyi) said that his country “will never allow chaos and war.” In turn, his Russian counterpart Vassily Nebenzia said that the sanctions alone will not solve the crisis.
'Freeze for freeze' is not an option
The U.S. does not agree with a “freeze for freeze” commitment proposed by China and Russia. Such agreement would hinder the deployment of U.S. military assets in joint drills with the South Korean army on the peninsula. In exchange, North Korea would halt its nuclear and missile tests.
Ambassador Nikki Haley ruled out such proposal.
She alleges that the U.S. can't lower its guard while North Korea poses a threat to America and its allies. “No one would do that. We certainly won’t,” she said. Instead, she also said that the U.S. may cut off trade with all countries that also trade with North Korea. China is the regime’s largest trading partner, and had nearly $650 billion worth of trade with the United States in 2016, according to the Chicago Tribune.
