Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/unsc4dprk040509.html
UNITED NATIONS, April 5 -- The Security Council meeting on North Korea broke up Sunday evening with a whisp of a press statement, and a seemingly illusory promise of "constructive consultation" on getting a Council resolution to condemn North Korea's missile launch. The most telling on-camera comment came from China's Ambassador Zhang Yesui, who said that the Council's response must be "cautious and proportionate."
Council sources tell Inner City Press that during the consultations, China said that a press statement, and nothing more, certainly not a resolution, would be the appropriate response to North Korea's launch. Inner City Press asked Council president Claude Heller of Mexico point blank to confirm that China said this. That's something to ask China, Ambassador Heller replied.
China's reasoning emerged in background interviews with other diplomats. (Zhang Yesui refused all questions at the stakeout, his spokesman saying that he had to rush to meetings with the American mission.) Japan's Ambassador Yukio Takasu offered a summary of the past decade of North Korean launches and attempted launches, in 1998, 2006 and now. China is noting that in 1998, all the Council did was issue a press statement. So there is precedent for that approach, in their view. And that is all they need.
Others argue that this present launch violates 2006's Resolution 1918, which prohibited acts related to ballistic missile technology. But, the reply argument goes, if North Korea has a right to develop space, how else can they launch their satellites? And if Resolution 1718 was intended to have the effect of barring their development of space, it should have spelled that out.
Inner City Press asked Ambassador Takasu if the issues of human rights or the Japanese abductees came up, and if China had indeed said a press statement is all that is appropriate. "That is not my position," Ambassador Takasu replied, leaning away from the microphone, leaving the questions of human rights and abductees unanswered. So too with U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice: she was already leaving the microphone as human rights as a question was posed by Inner City Press. There was no answer. But there may be answers to all this, later this week. Watch this site.And see, www.innercitypress.com/unsc4dprk040509.html
