The permanent representative of the DPRK at the UN sent a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon on May 23.

The letter said:

I write to kindly request the viewpoints of Your Excellency, the UN Secretary General, believing that there is a serious legal contradiction in the "sanctions resolutions" in which the UN Security Council has determined the nuclear tests and peaceful satellite launches conducted by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the DPRK as a "threat to international peace and security".

The UN Security Council has so far adopted resolution 1718(S/RES/1718), resolution 1874(S/RES/1874), resolution 2094(S/RES/2094) and resolution 2270(S/RES/2270) in 2006, 2009, 2013 and 2016 regarding the first, second and third nuclear test and the first hydrogen bomb test respectively.

The issue here is pp9 and op 1 of resolution 1718, pp8 of resolution 1874, pp7 of resolution 2094 and pp11 of resolution 2270 which have determined the nuclear tests and satellite launches of the DPRK as a "threat to international peace and security". In this regard, I hereby would like to raise the following questions.

The first question is on what is the legal ground for determining the DPRK's nuclear tests and satellite and ballistic rocket launches as a "threat to international peace and security" in the UN Security Council "sanctions resolutions".

Nowhere in related international laws including the UN Charter, the UN General Assembly resolutions, the CTBT, the NPT, the Outer Space Treaty, etc. can we find a single provision that nuclear tests are determined as a "threat to international peace and security".

The second question is why the UN Security Council has never made an issue of nor enforced any sanctions on the United States and other countries regarding their nuclear tests made over 2 000 times, ongoing regular satellite and ballistic rocket launches, if any nuclear test or satellite or ballistic rocket launch is considered as a "threat to international peace and security".

Third, in case of no convincing legal clarification is given on the above questions, it will be concluded that the UN Security Council has gone beyond powers, lost impartiality which is vital for international organizations and committed an act of double standard, by behaving trickily with the application of the article 39 Chapter 7 the UN Charter which stipulates that the UN Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to international peace and security before taking any action on sanctions.

I look forward to receiving a reply of legal clarification from the UN Secretariat.

KCNA