On Monday 2 January, the spokesperson for the European External Action Service (EEAS) called on North Korea to stop actions that are raising military tensions, including missile launches and drone incursions outside its borders last week.
North Korea conducted several ballistic missile launches on 31 December and 1 January. Its leader, Kim Jong-un, has called, according to the official KCNA agency, for an “exponential increase in the nuclear arsenal” of North Korea to confront its “undeniable enemy” South Korea and the United States. The country wants to “develop a new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system whose primary mission will be a rapid nuclear counterattack”.
“North Korea’s continued violation of UN Security Council resolutions and recent statements indicating that it intends to continue such unlawful actions do not help the North Korean people”, the EEAS spokesperson warned. He urged the country to take credible steps towards “complete, verifiable and irreversible” denuclearisation. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)