The Korea Herald

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UNSC to meet on N. Korea’s missile launches

By Korea Herald

Published : July 30, 2014 - 21:31

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The United Nations Security Council will meet next week to deal with North Korea’s recent spate of missile and rocket launches, government sources said Wednesday.

The 15-member Security Council is expected to meet on Tuesday, when it will hear details from a sanctions committee about the enforcement of U.N. resolutions which ban the North’s nuclear and missile programs, according to sources.

The committee, which reports to the Security Council every 90 days, was established in 2006 after the North’s first nuclear test.

The move comes as North Korea has beefed up its provocative acts in recent weeks by firing off short-range missiles and rockets, raising tension on the Korean Peninsula. North Korea has threatened to conduct its fourth nuclear test after detonating nuclear bombs in 2009 and 2013.

The Security Council condemned North Korea’s short-range missile launches on July 17, saying that such moves are in clear violation of U.N. resolutions.

It was an unusual move as short-range missile launches by North Korea have been mainly handled by the Security Council sanctions committee on the North.

But Pyongyang fired a short-range missile into the East Sea two days later, snubbing the Security Council’s denouncement.

The move was the 15th time that the North has launched rockets this year, and the sixth ballistic missile launch in 2014.

The sanctions committee said Monday that it blacklisted the operator of a North Korean ship that was seized by Panama last year for carrying Soviet-era arms in violation of a U.N. arms embargo against the North.

The vessel, the Chong Chon Gang, was seized in July 2013 near the Panama Canal when it was found to be carrying arms from Cuba under piles of sugar. (Yonhap)