South Korea says some countries ignore North Korea's unlawful behaviour

SINGAPORE - South Korea’s defence minister said on Saturday that some countries were

“ignoring North Korea’s unlawful behaviour”

, which he said threatens to weaken UN sanctions against its missile and nuclear programmes.

China and Russia on Friday ignored a US call for the United Nations Security Council to condemn North Korea for a

recent attempt to launch a satellite,

and instead blamed the United States for increasing tension on the Korean peninsula.

“This creates holes in sanctions against North Korea passed at the UN Security Council,” Defence Minister Lee Jong-sup said in a speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, Asia’s top security summit.

“Choosing inactivity to North Korea’s unlawful behaviour will worsen the security of not only the Korean peninsula, in the Pacific region, but also the entire world,” he said.

The South Korean minister reaffirmed the importance of trilateral security coordination with the US and Japan to deter North Korea.

According to a statement by South Korea’s Defence Ministry, the US and its two major allies will share North Korean missile warning data in real time “within this year”.

With North Korea launching ballistic missiles at an unprecedented pace in the past year, the three countries agreed in November to speed up information-sharing, including a pact to share real-time missile tracking data.

The defence ministers “strongly condemned North Korea’s recent long-range ballistic missile launch, under the guise of a so-called satellite”, the statement said.

North Korea argues it has a sovereign right to space development. REUTERS