UNITED NATIONS – Diplomats say Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, has missed the mark on her first major crisis at the international organization.
After more than a week of intensive consultations, the U.S. and Japan yesterday were only able to get the U.N. Security Council to release a statement regarding North Korea’s recent controversial missile launch.
Despite warnings by President Obama of “punishment” if it violated previous council resolutions prohibiting ballistic missile launches, Pyongyang fired a Taepodong-2 over the skies of Japan April 5.
The Pentagon, South Korean and Japanese defense officials remain convinced that the launch was to test a possible nuclear bomb delivery system rather than to orbit a crude communications satellite as North Korea has insisted.
As if to mock North Korea, the Tokyo foreign ministry officially labeled the North Korean missile a “flying object.”
Despite calls from Japan, a non-permanent member, for an immediate Security Council meeting last week, the group took more than 15 hours to convene.
After the two hour private “consultations,” at which nothing was done, Japan’s ambassador Yukio Takasu told this reporter he was sure the council would “react strongly,” though he admitted it might take “a few days.”
Despite personal politicking by Tokyo’s deputy foreign minister, Shintaro Ito, who traveled to New York, the council remained deadlocked throughout the week.
Eventually, Washington and Tokyo became resigned to the fact that China and Russia, two veto-wielding council members, would prevent any legally binding punishment against Pyongyang.
The feeling in Moscow and Beijing was that the North Korean launch was essentially “benign” and any punitive reaction could radicalize an already reclusive regime in Pyongyang.
Rice, who has only been at the U.N. post since January, was unable to get the Russian and Chinese ambassadors to move off their position and reluctantly settled on the non-binding presidential statement as the only alternative.
According to the U.N.’s legal department, the statement is no more than a “sense” of thinking within the council. It has no legal standing and there is no mechanism to “enforce” such “thinking.”
Rice, showing her short time on the job, twice tried vainly to convince reporters that the statement “is binding” and “enforceable.”
“The United States views presidential statements, broadly speaking, as binding. In this instance, it is more binding in that it adds to an existing Chapter 7 (use of force) sanctions regime,” the ambassador told the assembled press.
That not only had reporters shaking their heads but also put her into direct conflict with former Ambassador John Bolton, who told the AP on Saturday: “A resolution is an action. A presidential statement is an opinion.”
The Japanese deputy foreign minister, who did not attend yesterday’s meeting, was said to be disappointed in the council action.
North Korean diplomats, who promised “retaliation” if the council passed a formal resolution, were nowhere to be found yesterday. Their South Korean counterparts walked away from the security council meeting in silence.
The White House later released a tepid statement only saying that the missile launch would result in “real consequences for North Korea.”
It refused to detail just what “real consequences” meant, and there are no further meetings scheduled on North Korea.
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