North Korea Nuclear Tests: Pyongyang Says UN Sanctions Will Not Affect Launches

North Korea condemned Monday the United Nations’ efforts to redouble sanctions against it. The international organization asked its member countries last week to strengthen sanctions against North Korea following its missile and nuclear tests in September.

Pyongyang officials called the sanction resolutions “illegal criminal documents” orchestrated by the U.S.

“The sanction resolutions of the U.N. Security Council are illegal criminal documents,” Pang Kwang Hyok, vice director of the department of international organizations at the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told the Associated Press.

“These resolutions determined that our nuclear tests and satellite launches pose threats to international peace and security, but then the problem is why has the U.N. Security Council never taken issue with the nuclear tests and satellite launches conducted by other countries?” Pang asked.

Last week, following two unsuccessful missile launches by North Korea in September, the U.N. Security Council said in a statement the successive tests were a “flagrant disregard of the repeated statements of the Security Council.”

It also “called upon all Member States to redouble their efforts to implement fully the measures imposed on the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea by the Security Council.” Its resolution 2270 requires member nations to expel North Korean diplomats, governmental representatives or nationals acting in a governmental capacity assisting in the violation of U.N.-imposed sanctions.

Last week, U.S. and South Korea officials detected a failed North Korean intermediate ballistic missile launch. Officials believe the country tested a Musudan missile which has an estimated range of up to 2,500 miles and could reach South Korea, Japan and Guam.

“We strongly condemn this and North Korea’s other recent missile tests, which violate U.N. Security Council resolutions explicitly prohibiting North Korea’s launches using ballistic missile technology,” Pentagon spokesman Gary Ross said.

Pang added Monday that the sanctions would not deter North Korea’s mission to develop its nuclear stockpile. “I can state that it is a complete miscalculation to think that any sanctions or pressure can have any effect on us,” he said.