The North Korean ambassador to
the U.N. has filed a request for the body's Security Council to meet over the
ongoing U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises.
The letter, obtained by CNN,
calls the "Key Resolve" and "Foal Eagle 16" joint military
operations, the largest to date, "aggressive" and directed toward the
DPRK, an acronym for North Korea used by the regime.
The letter, written by North
Korea's Permanent Representative, Ambassador, JA Song Nam, and addressed to the
president of the Security Council, Ismael Abraao Gaspar Martins, alleges that
the operations are a "beheading operation" aimed to remove the
supreme leadership of the DPRK and "bring down its social system."
Previous attempts by North
Korea to convene the Security Council have failed.
Earlier this month the regime
threatened a preemptive nuclear strike over
the war games, which are held annually but have this year been ramped up to
include 300,000 South Korean troops and at least 17,000 U.S. forces.
The two exercises will run
until April 30. "Foal Eagle" will involve ground, air, naval and
special operations forces from both militaries.
The request comes after the
Security Council, including North Korea's longstanding ally China, voted
on tougher sanctions on the North in the wake of Pyongyang's purported
nuclear and rocket tests earlier in the year.
On Wednesday, the White House
announced new sets of sanctions on the regime, independent of the U.N.
restrictions.
In response, Chinese Ministry
of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lu Kang told journalists at a briefing Thursday
that Beijing opposes unilateral sanctions "by any country" and
"any measures that might escalate tensions on the (Korean)
peninsula."
He said that Beijing has
emphasized that "any country that imposes unilateral sanctions should not
harm China's interests."
In the letter to the Security
Council, the ambassador suggested that the body was obliged by the U.N. Charter
to take the matter under consideration, and that a failure to do so would
undermine its credibility.
Articles 34 and 35 of the UN
Charter allow the Security Council to investigate "any dispute, or
any situation which might lead to international friction," and gives
member states the right to refer such situations to the attention of the
Council.
The letter also references the
U.N.'s "dealing with the DPRK's so-called 'human rights situation'"
and suggests that addressing the U.S.-South Korean joint operations more
crucial to "maintaining international peace and security" than
focusing on North Korea's human rights record.
The letter comes shortly after
North Korea announced that a U.S. student, Otto Frederick Warmbier, had been
sentenced to 15 years of hard labour after accusing him of removing a
political banner from a hotel.
The sentence against the
University of Virginia student is "unduly harsh," State Department
spokesman Mark Toner said, calling for his release.