Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said that North Korea’s recent missile tests are a violation of United Nations resolution, CNN reported.
“Let me just be clear: these were short range missiles. Those are a violation of the UNSCR,” Shanahan told reporters while traveling to Jakarta.
That conclusion is at odds with Trump’s own assertions about North Korea’s missile tests, who told reporters during a press conference in Tokyo on Monday that he does not think the latest North Korean missile tests violated UN resolutions.
“My people think it could have been a violation,” Trump said. “I view it differently.”
The President added that he thinks Kim Jong Un could be a man “who wants to get attention,” but added there are no nuclear tests or long-range missiles being fired.
“North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me,” he wrote, posting the tweet ahead of his meetings with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
Trump’s mention of “my people” is a reference to national security adviser John Bolton, who said just a day earlier that “there is no doubt” the tests violated the UN resolutions, a sentiment the Japanese government agrees with, CNN writes.
“The UN Security Council resolution prohibits the launch of any ballistic missiles and there is no doubt that North Korea has violated the resolution,” Bolton said on Saturday.
Current UN resolutions demand that North Korea not launch any ballistic missiles. Back in October 2006, the UN responded to North Korea’s first nuclear test by passing Resolution 1718 which imposed sanctions and demanded that North Korea “not conduct any further nuclear test or launch of a ballistic missile.”
Earlier this month, CNN obtained a new satellite image indicating the rocket launched by North Korea was likely a short-range ballistic missile, according to the group that analyzed the picture.
Following that report, a U.S. official told CNN that an early analysis showed the launches “appear to have been both MLRS (multiple launch rocket systems) and what is being looked at as a possible short range ballistic missile.”
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