Washington, DC – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry (D-MA) tonight issued the following statement after North Korea attempted to launch a rocket with an attached satellite into space.
"Never before has so much been put in jeopardy for so little. This failure to launch should be a moment of reconsideration and introspection for the North Koreans. No one in the world, including North Korea's allies, believed this was just an attempt to launch a satellite and no one will accept their pledges to cooperate on denuclearization and lasting peace while they're conducting rocket launches. Worst of all for them, it was an international spectacle that violated UN Security Council resolutions, violated recent bilateral understandings, posed a threat to regional stability and sends, at best, a mixed message about North Korea's desire to change its relationship with the international community. We want to see the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and peace and security in Northeast Asia. The DPRK's continued provocations will not get us there and will only further isolate them from the world."
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