On Friday July 7, 2006 Japan and six other countries circulated a revised draft text of a resolution condemning North Korea's recent launches of missiles, rejecting a Chinese-proposed draft of a presidential statement.The six other countries were the United States, the United Kingdom, Denmark, France, Greece, and Slovakia.

Kenzo Oshima, the Japanese ambassador to the United Nations said "We have said, our co-sponsors, and Japan, that the council as the responsible organ for peace and security should act firmly, robustly and speedily in response to the grave situation created by the acts of the DPRK".

John Bolton, the American ambassador to the United Nations said "We think it's important that the response be in the form of a resolution, a binding resolution under Chapter 7 because of the nature of the threat to international peace and security that is represented by the North Korean missile launches".

What does all this mean? In my view, absolutely nothing.

Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya has said that China backs a presidential statement as an alternative to the resolution. This statement expresses concern about the missile launches carried out on Wednesday, reaffirmed the need for Pyongyang to reconfirm its moratorium on missile launching and urged North Korea to return to the six-party talks on its nuclear program. The Ambassador also stated "From my delegation and for a number of others we feel the best way to achieve that unanimity is a prst (presidential statement) with a strong message". Presidential Statements are not binding and mean absolutly nothing as China well knows.

Russia of course, seeks a nonbinding Security Council statement aimed at pushing North Korea back into talks over its nuclear program. Therefore, with two permanent members of the United Nations Security Council opposing any resolution it seems that it will be almost impossible for the Security Council to reach any type of unanimous agreement.

In other words, the United Nations, as usual, will do nothing but talk about the North Korean problem, just like it does nothing but talk about all the other problems.

David G. Hallstrom, Sr.
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