On Sunday 12 February, the spokesperson for the European External Action Service (EEAS) announced that High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini would speak "in the coming days" to the foreign ministers of international partners "to further discuss the international response" to be made to North Korea's latest ballistic missile launch.
The Security Council was due to hold an emergency meeting on Pyongyang's latest ballistic missile launch, which reportedly flew towards the Sea of Japan for about 500km. The launch again violates multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions, including Resolution 2321 adopted in November 2016 (see EUROPE 11680). "The DPRK's repeated disregard of its international obligations is provocative and unacceptable", the EEAS spokesperson stated in a press release, calling on North Korea to halt "all launches using ballistic missile technology and abandon once and for all its ballistic missile programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner, as required by the UN Security Council". "We call on the DPRK not to raise tensions further and to re-engage in a credible and meaningful dialogue with the international community, in particular the Six-Party Talks", the EEAS spokesperson added.
The European Union is due to adopt new sanctions against North Korea in the coming weeks through the transposition of UN Security Council Resolution 2321. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)