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This photo released by the Korean Central News Agency shows a test-fire of a ballistic missile by North Korea on Thursday. (Yonhap News)

The director-general of the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of International Organizations said the UN Security Council (UNSC) will “only cause an aggravation, not amelioration, of situation and confrontation, not dialogue, on the Korean peninsula” if it “continues to hold to [a] double standard,” according to a Monday report by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

The personal statement by Jo, which was published under the title “Double Standard Will Invite More Serious Consequence,” stressed, “Any attempt to infringe upon [North Korea’s] right to self-defense will inevitably prompt a countermeasure in kind.”

In his statement, Jo took aim at the UNSC Sanctions Committee for “[holding] its closed working-level consultation hastily on March 26,” as well as the UNSC’s decision to “convene its closed meeting on March 30” at the “request of UK, France and other countries.”

Asserting that North Korea’s “test fire of [a] new-type tactical guided missile on Thursday is an exercise of its righteous self-defensive right,” Jo said that he “strongly denounce[s] the moves of UNSC as a serious infringement upon the dignity of an independent state and its sovereignty and a wanton violation of the UN Charter, as UNSC is holding meetings on and conducting investigations into the DPRK with its extreme bias and double standard.”

By Lee Je-hun, senior staff writer

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