Statement by the Permanent Representative Ambassador Ronaldo Costa Filho in the Security Council meeting on Non-Proliferation/DPRK - 10 May 2022

Madam President,

On april 17th, North Korean state media announced the test of a “new type of tactical guided weapon”. In the same communiqué, the official news agency praised the said weapon for “drastically improving the firepower of the frontline long-range artillery units” of the DPRK, and for “enhancing the efficiency in the operation of tactical nukes”, thus “attaining the core goals of securing the war deterrent set at the 8th Party Congress”.

A week later, during a parade to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Korean People’s Revolutionary Army, the North Korean leadership declared that the DPRK’s nuclear weapons “can never be confined to the single mission of war deterrent” if there is a perceived threat against their homeland. After that statement, ballistic missiles were launched on May 4th and May 7th.

The DPRK's message to the international community could not be clearer. At the 8th Congress of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the North Korean leadership had already announced its intentions to develop “ultramodern tactical nuclear weapons”, “hypersonic gliding-flight warheads”, “multi-warhead missiles”. Their accomplishments and their pronouncements throughout this year have only confirmed what had already been said, but we, perhaps, did not want to listen.

If we, as a Council, did listen to the message that the DPRK has delivered time and again, we most certainly have not been able to respond. This Council’s silence, in the face of successive violations of its resolutions, is deafening.

Madam President,

It’s needless to say that Brazil condemns yet another launch of a ballistic missile by the DPRK. I have lost count of how many times my delegation has said that in the few months that we have been on the Council.

All members of this Council, and I repeat, all members of this Council have individually condemned North Korea’s violations. But none of those individual condemnations matter if the United Nations Security Council cannot speak as one single voice. It is high time the Council adopted strong and unified action in response to the DPRK’s provocations.

Keeping our silence, in the face of so much noise, only reinforces the arguments of those who accuse this Council of no longer being able to carry out the tasks entrusted upon it. Silence, in the current situation, means irrelevance, and the body who bears the primary responsibility under the UN Charter for the maintenance of international peace and security cannot afford to seem irrelevant.

I thank you, madam President.