China, Russia defend double veto of new UN sanctions on North Korea

WASHINGTON – China and Russia have sought to explain their vetoes on a new Security Council resolution that would have tightened sanctions on North Korea for its repeated ballistic missile tests.

China blamed the US for simmering tensions on the Korean Peninsula in the first such instance of a permanent Council member explaining their decision to veto a resolution under newly-adopted rules.

“The peninsula situation has developed to what it is today primarily due to the flip flop of US policies, its failure to uphold the results of previous dialogue, and its disregard for the reasonable concerns of the DPRK. This is an undeniable fact,” Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun told the General Assembly, referring to North Korea.

“To fundamentally resolve the peninsula issue requires abandoning the old approach of imposing sanctions and exerting pressure. Sanctions are a means to an end, not an end in themselves,” he added.

Anna Evstigneeva, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, echoed China, saying the US “ignored” its suggestions to respond to the crisis and Russia called for changing the resolution to a “format that would have been acceptable for many members of the Security Council.” The Kremlin had sought a nonbinding statement rather than a resolution.

“Unfortunately, these proposals fell on deaf ears,” she said. “We’ve repeatedly said that introducing new sanctions on the DPRK would be a dead end.”

China and Russia vetoed the new Security Council action on May 26, even as all of the body’s 13 other members voted in favor amid Pyongyang’s continued ballistic missile launches, which run afoul of existing council resolutions.

The vote came one day after North Korea carried out a series of ballistic missile tests, including one believed to be its most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Last weekend, it carried out its largest test to date, launching eight missiles into the Sea of Japan.

The sanctions envisioned in the defunct draft text would have targeted North Korea’s tobacco and manufactured tobacco substitutes as well as mineral fuels, mineral oils and products of their distillation.

It warned of “further significant measures in the event of a further DPRK intercontinental ballistic missile launch or any other launch contributing to the development of a ballistic missile system or technology capable of such ranges or nuclear test.”