North Korea calls UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres 'Puppet of US'

The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was criticised by North Korea's foreign minister for supporting the US-led condemnation of the North's most recent intercontinental ballistic missile launch and referred to him as "a puppet of the United States."

In a statement broadcast by official media, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said, "I often take the UN secretary-general for a representative of the US White House or its State Department." "I express my deep concern over the fact that the UN secretary-general has adopted a very dreadful approach, ignorant of the purpose and principles of the UN Charter and its legitimate duty, which is to uphold equality, objectivity, and impartiality in all affairs," he states.

Choe asserted that Guterres' failure to address the U.S. and its allies' submission to the U.N. Security Council about the North's ICBM test "clearly proves that he is a puppet of the U.S."

On Japan's request, the U.N. Security Council convened an urgent meeting on Monday morning to discuss North Korea's ICBM launch. But it's uncertain whether it can impose new economic sanctions on North Korea given that China and Russia, two of the council's veto-wielding members, have opposed previous efforts by the United States and its allies to impose tougher sanctions on the North over its prohibited ballistic missile tests previously this year.