NEWS RELEASES

July 5, 2006 (10:45 a.m. EDT)
No. 74

CANADA CONDEMNS NORTH KOREAN MISSILE LAUNCH

The Honourable Peter MacKay, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, today condemned the launch of several ballistic missiles, including what appears to have been a long-range missile, by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. 

“These missile launches represent a major threat to peace and stability in Northeast Asia and seriously undermine global efforts at halting the development and spread of the means of delivery for weapons of mass destruction,” said Minister MacKay. “Such actions can only diminish North Korea’s security, not enhance it.”

This series of launches break North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on long-range ballistic missile testing, instituted in 1999 following a missile test on August 31, 1998. Canadian officials have long urged North Korea to maintain this unilateral moratorium, as well as to permanently halt the development and export of missile-related goods and technologies and to subscribe to the Hague Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation.

“This is not the first time the North Korean government has used brinkmanship in an attempt to improve its leverage with the international community,” said Minister MacKay. “Canada believes that such tactics are counterproductive and ultimately destined to fail.”

Since 2003, North Korea has been a member of the Six-Party Talks (China, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Russia and the United States) convened to address its nuclear program.

While all parties agree that the objective of the talks is to denuclearize the Korean peninsula, North Korea has refused to return to the table since the last round was held in November 2005, citing U.S. financial measures against its companies suspected of involvement in money laundering and counterfeiting.

Canada established diplomatic relations with North Korea in February 2001 but placed relations on a “not business as usual” footing in October 2002, following the admission by North Korean officials that their country was pursuing a clandestine uranium enrichment program.

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