South Korea is considering bringing North Korea’s launch of a submarine-launched ballistic missile to the U.N. Security Council for possible additional sanctions, officials here said Monday.
Two days earlier, the secretive communist nation announced that it had successfully test-fired an SLBM, an assertion which South Korea’s military said seems to be true.
“The government is in inter-agency consultations on an appropriate response,” a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said.
“Of course, bringing the issue to the U.N. Security Council can be an option. But it’s still too early to talk about specific measures.”
The North’s provocation violates a series of U.N. resolutions banning it from carrying out any launch using ballistic missile technology.
With regard to Pyongyang’s previous launches of ballistic missiles in recent years, the council convened emergency meetings at times and issued largely symbolic statements criticizing the country and urging it to stop provocative acts.
But doubts are growing about how to take additional and effective punitive steps against Pyongyang, which is already under decades-long U.N. sanctions. (Yonhap)
