The US ambassador President Nikki Haley said today that the UN Security Council has no options to contain North Korea’s nuclear program and insisted that if it did not change the direction of the situation, its government would have to put the issue in hands of the Pentagon.
“We have exhausted almost everything we can do on the Security Council at this time,” Haley told CNN’s “State of the Union” program.
“We wanted to be responsible and go through all the diplomatic means to get their attention first,” he added. “If that does not work, General (James) Mattis will take care of it,” he said in reference to transferring the matter to the Secretary of Defense .
Haley insisted that the US government is “trying every other possibility,” but acknowledged that “there are many military options on the table.”
The UN Security Council imposed a new battery of economic sanctions against the Pyongyang government in response to its last nuclear test on 3 September.
However, the fifteen members of the Council refused to impose further sanctions just two days ago, after Kim Jong-un’s regime launched a new medium-distance missile that flew over Japanese territory.
The United Nations’ highest decision-making body condemned Friday’s rehearsal, calling it “highly provocative,” and stressed that all countries should apply “completely” and “immediately” measures against Pyongyang approved by the UN .
For now, every resolution adopted by the Security Council has followed new North Korean tests.
“We are in a vicious circle,” Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasili Nebenzia lamented, saying that perhaps the time has come to look for other approaches.
Russia, along with China, is defending a proposal that North Korea would discontinue its arms tests in exchange for the US. and South Korea to suspend their military exercises, all with the aim of facilitating a negotiation.
However, the parties have so far refused to take this step, and instead have chosen this summer to raise their tone and use a rhetoric of confrontation.
General H.R McMaster, National Security Adviser to US President Donald Trump, also acknowledged that they are considering “the military option,” although they would rather not have to resort to it.
