N.K. sends letter to U.N. chief over sanctions’ unfairness

SEOUL (Yonhap) — North Korea has sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to take issue with the fairness of sanctions slapped by the world body over its nuclear test and long-range rocket launch, the country’s state-run media said Tuesday.

The head of North Korea’s mission on the United Nations on Monday sent the letter to Ban, requesting the U.N. chief to state his opinion about why the U.N. only regards the North’s nuclear and rocket-launch tests as threats to world peace, according to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The message came as the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) imposed its toughest sanctions on North Korea to date in early March in response to the communist country’s fourth nuclear test and long-range rocket launch early this year. The North also conducted nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013, all in the face of warnings issued by the international community.

North Korea has claimed that its latest long-range rocket launch sent a satellite into orbit, but South Korea and the U.S. view the move as nothing more than a covert test to check the country’s ballistic missile technology. The country is banned under a series of U.N. sanctions from conducting missile tests.

The KCNA said Pyongyang has called on the U.N. to make clear its legal grounds with which the UNSC has imposed a set of sanctions against the communist country.

“If nuclear tests and rocket launches are regarded as threats to world peace and stability, why has the UNSC not imposed sanctions against the U.S. and other countries which carried out about 2,000 nuke and rocket-launch tests?,” it argued.

The North then said it will see the UNSC’s sanctions against Pyongyang as an act which lacks fairness if the global body does not give a convincing answer to the issues raised.

The revelation of the letter being sent comes as the U.N. chief will arrive in South Korea on Wednesday for a six-day visit, the first trip to his home country in a year.