North Korea to chair UN disarmament forum for 4 weeks in 2022

North Korea has won a seat at the nuclear weapons table – and will soon chair it.

The United Nations Conference on Disarmament will hand over the reins to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea for four weeks in 2022 – listing them as the forum’s next rotating chair.

“The session will open under the chairmanship of China. The chairmanship of the Conference rotates among its member states in English alphabetical order, with each chairman serving for four working weeks,” the UN conference said. announcement.

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The conference, devoted to the reduction and eventual cessation of weapons of mass destruction, will feature a rotating presidency by country, including the hermit kingdom.

“After the Chinese presidency (from January 24 to February 18), the following countries will also take over the presidency in 2022: Colombia (from February 21 to March 18), Cuba (from March 21 to April 1 and from May 16 to 27) , the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (May 30 to June 24), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (June 27 to July 1 and August 1 to 19) and Ecuador (August 22 to September 16), “says the UN document on the next conference.

The conference can look back on a track record of joint agreements and international political successes, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968 and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1996.

“It’s the height of irony,” former deputy assistant secretary of defense for East Asia Heino Klinck told Fox News.

“It calls into question the relevance and legitimacy of the UN, but in essence any sovereign state that is a member of the UN is treated the same,” he continued. “But I find it very paradoxical that you have a country that is violating UN Security Council resolutions regarding its nuclear weapons program and its ballistic missile program and [will be] ostensibly the chair of disarmament? It’s silly.”

This photo provided by the North Korean government shows what it says about a test launch of a hypersonic missile in North Korea on Wednesday, January 5, 2022. Independent journalists were not allowed to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as supplied and cannot be independently verified. The Korean watermark on the image as provided by the source reads: “KCNA”, which is short for Korean Central News Agency. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

North Korea recently stepped up testing activities amid long-running nuclear talks with the Biden administration, which recently hit out at five North Korean officials with punishments regarding missile testing in the region.

North Korea last week issued a veiled threat to resume testing of nuclear explosives and long-range missiles targeting the American homeland, which leader Kim Jong Un suspended in 2018 while beginning diplomacy with states. -United.

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North Korea indicated that he could reconsider certain concessions made in the United States after the president Biden hit the hermit kingdom with new punishments.

This photo taken on September 3, 2017 and released by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 4, 2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un attending a meeting with a committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea about testing a hydrogen bomb, at an unknown location. North Korea said it detonated a hydrogen bomb designed for a long-range missile on September 3 and called its sixth and most powerful nuclear test a “perfect success”, prompting global condemnation and the promise of more US sanctions. severe.
(STR/AFP via Getty Images)

In recent weeks, the isolated nation has stepped up its weapons testing, including the testing of supposedly hypersonic weapons such as glider vehicles. The Biden administration hit five North Korean officials with punishments compared to the tests.

The sixth meeting of the Central Committee’s Political Bureau was held this week, attended by party general secretary Kim Jong Un. The Politburo discussed a number of “confidence-building measures,” one of which could be to reverse a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missile testing in response to sanctions.

Fox News’ Kyle Morris and Peter Aitken contributed to this report.