- Friday, April 19, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
IT is known to be not only one of the few isolationist nations in the world but also one with high military ambitions. And when it assumes the leadership of the world’s premier multilateral disarmament group at the United Nations albeit temporarily, a backlash is not unusual.
Several countries have objected to North Korea taking over the presidency of the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament on Thursday (2), a position that rotates between the body’s 60-plus members in an alphabetical order of their names.
The development has happened at a time when North Korea faces sanctions imposed by the UN’s Security Council resolutions for developing and testing missiles — nuclear and intra-continental ballistic.
Pyongyang, which is under the rule of the Kim family for several decades now, is one of the most militarised nations and has not even stopped from warning the US. It has conducted 17 rounds of missile tests in 2022 after its ruler Kim Jong-un decided earlier this year to bolster the country’s nuclear forces fast.
The international fraternity has also expressed suspicion that North Korea is planning to conduct its seventh nuclear test after a gap of five years since 2017.
However, its envoy to the UN has tried to convince the world that Pyongyang’s intentions are positive. Ambassador Han Tae-song said, “The DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea which is the official name of the country) remains committed to contributing to global peace and disarmament and attaches importance to the work of the conference,” ambassador Han Tae-song said as he opened a new session, referring to North Korea by its official name.
He said it was an “honour and a privilege” to hold the role for the next three weeks.
The Conference on Disarmament is held three times a year in Geneva. It is the world’s only permanent multilateral body that negotiates arms control and disarmament agreements.
The goal of the forum is to end the nuclear arms race among nations but has not achieved much success and turned more into a place where countries either criticise others’ weapon programmes or defend their own plans.
