South Korea on Saturday slammed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) for its denunciation of new tougher UN Security Council resolution, saying it will be an outright challenge to the international community.
Seoul's foreign ministry spokesman Cho June-hyuk said in a statement that Pyongyang's rejection of the UN Security Council resolution is tantamount to an outright challenge to the international society's unified will.
It also indicates Pyongyang's choice to run counter to a path to peace on the Korean Peninsula and the world by defying the international society's resolution adopted unanimously by UN Security Council member states, the spokesman said.
Cho said his country will make the DPRK awakened from its delusion by responding to its reckless acts with strong and effective measures, urging Pyongyang to return to a path for peace by abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
His comments came a day after the DPRK announced two separate statements in the name of government and foreign ministry and said the country will firmly reject the new UN resolution.
Describing the fresh sanctions as the "most heinous provocation" toward an independent state, the DPRK said it will mobilize all possible measures, including "strong and merciless physical responses" against the resolution.
It was the first official response by the DPRK to the new harsher UN Security Council resolution, which South Korea said was the toughest and most effective non-military measures in seven decades of UN history.
The resolution was adopted to punish the DPRK for its latest nuclear test and long-range rocket launch. Pyongyang tested what it claimed was its first hydrogen bomb on Jan. 6 and followed up with the launch of a long-range rocket, which outsiders see as a prohibited test of missile technology, on Feb. 7.
