WORLD> Asia-Pacific
DPRK opposes any UN action against satellite launch
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-27 00:16

PYONGYANG - The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) said on Thursday it opposes any action of the United Nations against its planned satellite launch, warning it would ruin the six-party talks.

Any UN document related to the DPRK's satellite launch, no matter "chairman statement" or "press communique," and the act to submit the satellite issue to the UN Security Council, will be "brutal anti-DPRK movement," a DPRK Foreign Ministry spokesman was cited by the official KCNA news agency as saying.

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Such hostile action will cause the six-party talks "not (to) exist any more" and reduce the progresses achieved through the talks into null, the unnamed spokesman said, adding that the DPRK will take "necessary powerful measures" against possible UN actions.

The spokesman said the DPRK opposes not only possible sanctions, but also any UN action against the satellite launch.

It is a violation of the DPRK's sovereignty to deny its right to explore the space for peaceful purpose, he said.

Any hostile action of the UN Security Council will mean its denial of the joint statement reached in the six-party talks, he added.

The DPRK has informed the international community of its plan to launch a satellite between April 4 and 8, and some Western countries continue to suspect the operation is a cover for the test-firing of a long-range ballistic missile.

The DPRK said on Tuesday that "there will be neither the foundation nor the meaning for the existence of the six-party talks" if the United States and Japan breached its sovereignty by denying its right to develop peaceful space programs and taking hostile actions under the name of the UN Security Council.