U.N. Nuclear Disarmament Forum Welcomes North Korea to Chairmanship

The rotating chairmanship of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament, the body that produced the landmark Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968, will pass on May 30 to the most dangerous and intransigent nuclear rogue nation in the world, North Korea.

The jaw-dropping chairmanship transition was announced in January and will evidently proceed on schedule, giving the psychotic dictatorship of North Korea four weeks to ceremonially chair the U.N. disarmament body — even though North Korea is under heavy U.N. sanctions for recklessly proceeding with its nuclear missile program.

The New York Post (NYP) in January called the announcement “fresh proof of the lunacy of the United Nations” and noted North Korea had just conducted four illegal ballistic missile tests.

“Any government that actually cares about disarmament ought to boycott, as the United States and Canada did when Iran held the same chair in 2013,” the NYP advised.

The same recommendation was made by U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer on Thursday, with support from 30 other U.N.-accredited groups.

“Having the North Korean regime of Kim Jong-un preside over global nuclear weapons disarmament will be like putting a serial rapist in charge of a women’s shelter,” Neuer said.

“This is a country that threatens to attack other U.N. member states with missiles, and that commits atrocities against its own people,” he pointed out. “Torture and starvation are routine in North Korean political prison camps where an estimated 100,000 people are held in what is one of the world’s most dire human-rights situations.”

U.N. Watch, a non-governmental organization (NGO) based in Geneva, said it will hold protest events with victims of North Korea’s abuses. 

The group asked the United States, European Union, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to formally protest North Korea’s appointment. U.N. Watch called for the American and European ambassadors to walk out of the conference during North Korea’s chairmanship.

U.N. Watch noted that North Korea’s position will not be purely ornamental, since North Korean ambassador and putative chairman Han Tae-song will “help organize the work of the conference and assist in setting the agenda.”

“North Korea holding the president’s gavel is liable to seriously undermine the  image and credibility of the United Nations, and will send absolutely the worst message. At a time when China, Russia, Libya, Kazakhstan and Venezuela are sitting on the UN’s human rights council, this won’t help,” Neuer said.

Neuer called it a “fundamental conflict of interests to have North Korea as president of a disarmament forum, an act liable to be exploited by North Korean propaganda to legitimize Kim Jong-un’s regime.”

U.N. Watch began circulating a petition in April to remove Russia from the U.N. Human Rights Council, on the grounds that Russia’s “gross and systematic violation of human rights” during its illegal invasion of Ukraine should disqualify it from membership. 

South Korean military officials said on Wednesday that North Korea test-launched three more missiles. One of the weapons was probably a Hwasong-17, North Korea’s most advanced intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). 

The South Korean government also believes North Korea is reading its nuclear test site at Punggye-ri to test a nuclear warhead detonator. The provocations were evidently timed to coincide with U.S. President Joe Biden’s visit to South Korea.