Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will chair a special United Nations Security Council meeting on the threat of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s regime, the State Department announced Monday.
“The meeting will give Security Council members an opportunity to discuss ways to maximize the impact of existing Security Council measures and show their resolve to respond to further provocations with appropriate new measures,” deputy spokesman Mark Toner said in a State Department bulletin.
North Korea has loomed large in the early days of President Trump’s tenure, as a spate of missile tests and the assassination of Kim Jong Un’s half-brother compelled Tillerson and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to make separate diplomatic trips to the region. Tillerson’s meeting Friday at the UN will cap a week full of administration activity regarding North Korea, including a White House-hosted briefing of the full Senate by Trump’s national security team.
“The DPRK poses one of the gravest threats to international peace and security through its pursuit of nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles, and other weapons of mass destruction as well as its other prohibited activities,” Toner said.
That will be the second special high-level meeting with the UN Security Council in a week after Trump hosted the diplomats for a rare working lunch with ambassadors from UNSC countries at the White House on Monday.
“The status quo in North Korea is also unacceptable, and the Council must be prepared to impose additional and stronger sanctions on North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programs,” Trump said Monday. “This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not. North Korea is a big world problem, and it’s a problem we have to finally solve. People have put blindfolds on for decades, and now it’s time to solve the problem.”
