Tag: Linda Thomas-Greenfield

Kim’s sister warns US of ‘a more fatal security crisis’

SEOUL, South Korea — The influential sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un warned the United States on Tuesday that it would face “a more fatal security crisis” as Washington pushes for U.N. condemnation of the North’s recent intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Kim Yo Jong’s warning came hours after U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council that the U.S. will circulate a proposed presidential statement condemning North Korea’s banned missile launches and other destabilizing activities. After the meeting, Thomas-Greenfield also read a statement by 14 countries which supported action to limit North Korea’s advancement of its weapons programs.

Kim Yo Jong, who is widely considered North Korea’s second most powerful person after her brother, lambasted the United States for issuing what she called “a disgusting joint statement together with such rabbles as Britain, France, Australia, Japan and South Korea.”

Kim compared the United States to “a barking dog seized with fear.” She said North Korea would consider the U.S.-led statement “a wanton violation of our sovereignty and a grave political provocation.”

“The U.S. should be mindful that no matter how desperately it may seek to disarm (North Korea), it can never deprive (North Korea) of its right to self-defense and that the more hell-bent it gets on the anti-(North Korea) acts, it will face a more fatal security crisis,” she said in a statement carried by state media.

Monday’s U.N. Security Council meeting was convened in response to North Korea’s ICBM launch on Friday, which was part of a provocative run of missile tests this year that experts say is designed to modernize its nuclear arsenal and increase its leverage in future diplomacy. Friday’s test involved its most powerful Hwasong-17 missile, and some experts say the successful steep-angle launch proved its potential to strike anywhere in the U.S. mainland if it’s fired at a standard trajectory.

During the Security Council meeting, the United States and its allies strongly criticized the ICBM launch and called for action to limit North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. But Russia and China, both veto-wielding members of the Security Council, opposed any new pressure and sanctions on North Korea. In May, the two countries vetoed a U.S.-led attempt to toughen sanctions on North Korea over its earlier ballistic missile tests, which are prohibited by U.N. Security Council resolutions.

North Korea has said its testing activities are legitimate exercises of its right to self defense in response to regular military drills between the United States and South Korea which it views as an invasion rehearsal. Washington and Seoul officials say the exercises are defensive in nature.

Kim Yo Jong said the fact that North Korea’s ICBM launch was discussed at the Security Council is “evidently the application of double-standards” by the U.N. body because it “turned blind eyes” to the U.S.-South Korean military drills and arms buildups targeting North Korea. She said North Korea will take “the toughest counteraction to the last” to protect its national security.

On Monday, North Korea’s foreign minister, Choe Son Hui, called U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “a puppet of the United States.”

There are concerns that North Korea may soon conduct its first nuclear test in five years.

The status of North Korea’s nuclear capability remains shrouded in secrecy. Some analysts say North Korea already has nuclear-armed missiles that can strike both the U.S. mainland and its allies South Korea and Japan, but others say the North is still years away from possessing such missiles.

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November 22, 2022
US and Russia clash over responsibility for missile strike

UNITED NATIONS — The U.S. and its Western allies clashed with Russia at the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday over responsibility for a deadly missile strike in Poland near the Ukrainian border, an event the U.N. political chief called “a frightening reminder of the absolute need to prevent any further escalation” of the nine-month war in Ukraine.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council: “This tragedy would never have happened but for Russia’s needless invasion of Ukraine and its recent missile assaults against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure.” Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia countered, accusing Ukraine and Poland of trying “to provoke a direct clash between Russia and NATO.”

The U.S. and Albania had called for a council update on the situation in Ukraine last week, and the meeting was dominated by Tuesday’s missile strike in Poland that killed two farm workers.

Nebenzia pointed to statements by Ukraine’s president and Polish officials initially indicating Russia was responsible. NATO’s chief and Poland’s president said Wednesday there is no indication it was a deliberate attack, and was likely a Soviet-era projectile launched by Ukraine as it was fending off Russian missiles and drones that savaged its power grid and hit residential buildings.

U.N. Undersecretary-General for political affairs Rosemary DiCarlo told the council that it was Russia’s “most intense bombardments” since its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, and the impact “can only worsen during the coming winter months.”

She reiterated that attacks targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international law, noted that “heavy battles” are continuing in eastern Donetsk and Luhansk and told council members “there is no end in sight to the war.” She also warned that “as long as it continues, the risks of potentially catastrophic spillover remain all too real.”

Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. envoy, called the barrage of more than 90 missiles that rained down on Kyiv and other cities and targets devastating civilian infrastructure “a deliberate tactic” by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“He seems to have decided that if he can’t seize Ukraine by force, he will try to freeze the country into submission,” she said.

Poland’s U.N. Ambassador Krzysztof Szczerski told the council “those innocent people would not have been killed if there had been no Russian war against Ukraine.” And Britain’s U.N. Ambassador Barbara Woodward said: “We should be clear that this is a tragedy that indisputably stems from Russia’s illegal and unjustified invasion. And it’s inhumane assault on civilians across Ukraine.

But Russia’s Nebenzia said he wanted to remind those blaming Russia that what Moscow calls its “special military operation” wouldn’t have been needed if the Minsk agreements after the upheaval in Ukraine in 2014 that called for a degree of self-rule for the Russian-backed separatist regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east had been fulfilled, and hadn’t led to an eight-year war.

Addressing the West, Nebenzia also said there would be no military action “if you had not interfered and did not supply Ukraine with weapons and ammunition” and encouraged Ukraine “to strive for peace on realistic terms rather than fuel its feverish fantasies about the possibility of victory over Russia, for the sake of which the Zelenskyy regime is senselessly throwing tens of thousands of its soldiers into the meat grinder.”

As for the missile attacks, Nebenzia said, “If you reacted to the terrorist actions of the Ukrainian special forces against Russia, we would not be forced to conduct precision strikes on infrastructure.”

“But since you’re acting as you’re acting, while the Kyiv regime is taking credit for non-existent military prowess, we are forced to achieve the goals set for the special military operation by weakening the military potential of Ukraine,” he said.

Britain’s Woodward strongly disagreed, telling the council, “We are in no doubt that Ukraine will prevail in the face of Russia’s aggression.”

Pointing to the Russian withdrawal from the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, she said, “The liberation of Kherson shows the strength, courage and determination of the Ukrainian people to defend their right to sovereign equality and territorial integrity guaranteed under the U.N. Charter.”

“It is and remains a war of choice, a pure act of unprovoked aggression and the attempt to grab territory. This war must end not expand, and Russia started it, Russia must put an end to it,” Hoxha said.

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November 16, 2022
UN, Russians to discuss extension of Ukraine export deal

UNITED NATIONS — Senior U.N. and Russian officials planned to meet in Geneva on Friday for talks on extending the deal that returned Ukrainian grain to world markets and was supposed to eliminate obstacles for Russian exports of grain and fertilizer.

The agreement expires Nov. 19, and Ukraine and Western nations are pressing for it to be extended. However, Russia’s government has said it is undecided, expressing dissatisfaction with how the deal has worked for its side.

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths and U.N. trade chief Rebeca Grynspan, who has been in charge of the Russian side of the agreement, were to meet with a Russian delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin, the U.N. said Thursday.

Separate agreements brokered by the United Nations and Turkey and signed by Ukraine and Russia in Istanbul on July 22 were a rare example of tacit cooperation between the warring nations in the face of an escalating global food crisis following Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of its smaller neighbor.

Ukraine and Russia were two of the world’s top suppliers of grain before the war, and Russia was also the leading exporter of fertilizer. The disruptions of their exports caused food shortages and added to price rises around the globe, hitting poor nations especially hard.

Ukraine and Russia provided around 30% of the world’s exported wheat and barley, 20% of its corn and over 50% of its sunflower oil, Grynspan told the U.N. Security Council last week. Russia was the world’s biggest exporter of fertilizers, accounting for 15% of global exports.

Under the July 22 deal, Ukraine has shipped more than 10 million tons of grain from three Black Sea ports to destinations in Africa, Asia and Europe.

But Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Andrey Rudenko, said Tuesday that the Kremlin had not decided whether to extend its agreement. “We are very dissatisfied with how the Russian part is being implemented,” he said.

Even though there are no U.S. or European Union sanctions on food and fertilizer shipments from Russia as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has pointed to major obstacles such as getting financing and insurance for ships and finding ports where Russian vessels can dock.

In late October, Russia’s U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, said: “Russia needs to see the export of its grain and fertilizers in the world market, which has never happened since the beginning of the deal.”

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, visited the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Tuesday and warned that global food security depends on renewing the deal.

She said that 828 million people in the world are going to bed hungry every night and that makes it imperative the agreement be extended.

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November 10, 2022
US, allies clash with China, Russia over NKorea missiles

UNITED NATIONS — The United States and its allies clashed with China and Russia on Friday over North Korea’s escalating ballistic missile launches and American-led military exercises in South Korea, again preventing any action by the deeply divided U.N. Security Council.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said North Korea’s “staggering 59 ballistic missile launches this year,” including 13 since Oct. 27 and one that made an “unprecedented impact” about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from South Korea’s shore, are about more than advancing Pyongyang’s military capabilities and seek to raise tensions and stoke fear in its neighbors.

She said 13 of the 15 Security Council members have condemned North Korea’s actions since the beginning of the year, but Pyongyang has been protected by Russia and China who have “bent over backwards” to justify repeated violations of U.N. sanctions by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, or DPRK, the country’s official name.

“And, in turn, they have enabled the DPRK and made a mockery of this council,” she said.

China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun countered that the DPRK missile launches are directly linked to the re-launch of large-scale U.S.-South Korean military exercises after a five-year break, with hundreds of warplanes involved. He also pointed to the U.S. Defense Department’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review which he said envisages the DPRK’s use of nuclear weapons and claims that ending the DPRK regime is one of the strategy’s main goals.

Russia’s deputy U.N. ambassador Anna Evstigneeva blamed the significantly worsening situation on the Korean peninsula on “the desire of Washington to force Pyongyang to unilaterally disarm by using sanctions and exerting pressure and force.”

She called the U.S.-South Korean exercises that began on Oct. 31 unprecedented in size, with about 240 military aircraft, and claimed they are “essentially a rehearsal for conducting massive strikes on the territory of the DPRK.”

America’s Thomas-Greenfield responded to claims by China and Russia that the military drills were stoking tensions on the Korean peninsula saying: “This is nothing but a regurgitation of DPRK propaganda.” She said the longstanding defensive military exercises “pose no threat to anyone, let alone the DPRK.”

“In contrast, just last month, the DPRK said its flurry of recent launches were the simulated use of tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to `hit and wipe out’ potential U.S. and Republic of Korea targets,” she said. “The DPRK is simply using this as an excuse to continue to advance its unlawful programs.”

The Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea’s first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years seeking to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and cut off funding. In May, however, China and Russia blocked a Security Council resolution that would have toughened sanctions over the missile launches, in the first serious rift on the council over the sanctions against North Korea.

That rift remains and appears to have grown deeper, but Russia, China and the United States did agree on one thing: the need for renewed talks and a diplomatic solution to the crisis on the Korean peninsula.

China’s Zun called on the U.S. “to stop unilaterally playing up tensions and confrontation” and respond “to the legitimate and reasonable concerns of the DPRK to create conditions for the resumption of meaningful dialogue.” And he said the Security Council, rather than seeking additional pressure on the DPRK, should contribute “to the restart of dialogue and negotiation and resolving the humanitarian and livelihood difficulties faced by the DPRK.”

Russia’s Evstigneeva said further sanctions would threaten North Korean citizens “with unacceptable social, economic and humanitarian upheavals,” and reiterated the need “for preventive diplomacy and the importance of finding a political diplomatic solution and real steps by Washington, more than just promises to establish substantive dialogue.”

Thomas-Greenfield said even in the face of the DPRK’s escalating missile launches, “the United States remains committed to a diplomatic solution” and has conveyed its request to the DPRK for talks at all levels of the U.S. government.

After the meeting, the 10 elected council members joined in a statement condemning the launches, calling on the DPRK to halt its nuclear and missile programs, and reiterating their commitment to diplomacy and dialogue.

The U.S., Britain, France, South Korea, Japan and others then read a statement calling on all countries to join in condemning North Korea’s “destabilizing behavior and urging the DPRK to abandon its unlawful weapons programs and engage in diplomacy toward denuclearization.”

Before the council meeting, former U.N. secretary-general Ban Ki-moon told a meeting of Associated Press executives that he is deeply concerned at North Korea’s “unacceptable behavior” and expressed hope that the Security Council would take “very decisive and strong measures.”

North Korea is the only country since the end of World War II that has declared it will use nuclear weapons in a first strike “when they feel that any crisis may be imminent to them,” he said, calling this “arbitrary” and “irresponsible.”

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November 5, 2022
Russia vetoes UN resolution calling its referendums illegal

UNITED NATIONS — Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution Friday that would have condemned its referendums in four Ukrainian regions as illegal, declared them invalid and urged all countries not to recognize any annexation of the territory claimed by Moscow.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 10-1 with China, India, Brazil and Gabon abstaining.

The resolution would also have demanded an immediate halt to Russia’s “full-scale unlawful invasion of Ukraine” and the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all its military forces from Ukraine.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield said before the vote that in the event of a Russian veto, the U.S. and Albania who sponsored the resolution will take it to the 193-member General Assembly where there are no vetoes, “and show that the world is still on the side of sovereignty and protecting territorial integrity.”

The council vote came hours after a lavish Kremlin ceremony where President Vladimir Putin signed treaties to annex the Russian-occupied Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, saying they were now part of Russia and would be defended by Moscow.

Thomas-Greenfield said the results of the “sham” referendums on whether the regions wanted to join Russia were “pre-determined in Moscow, and everybody knows it.” “They were held behind the barrel of Russian guns,” she said.

Adding that “the sacred principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity” at the heart of the U.N. Charter must be defended, she said, “All of us understand the implications for our own borders, our own economies, and our own countries if these principles are tossed aside.”

“Putin miscalculated the resolve of the Ukrainians,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “The Ukrainian people have demonstrated loud and clear: They will never accept being subjugated to Russian rule.”

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia defended the referendums, claiming that more than 100 international observers from Italy, Germany, Venezuela and Latvia who observed the voting recognized the outcomes as legitimate.

“The results of the referendums speak for themselves. The residents of these regions do not want to return to Ukraine. They have made a an informed and free choice in favor of our country,” he said.

Nebenzia added: “There will be no turning back as today’s draft resolution would try to impose.”

He accused Western nations on the council of “openly hostile actions,” saying they reached “a new low” by putting forward a resolution condemning a council member and forcing a Russian veto so they can “wax lyrical.”

Under a resolution adopted earlier this year, Russia must defend its veto before the General Assembly in the coming weeks.

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September 30, 2022