North Korea to Lead Nuclear Disarmament Conference

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
Pyeongyang Press Corps/Pool/Getty Images

North Korea to Lead Nuclear Disarmament Conference

The United Nations trusts Kim Jong-un to lead the world in abandoning nuclear weapons.

The United Nations selected North Korea for the rotating presidency of the Conference on Disarmament, it announced on January 28. Pyongyang will hold the presidency for four weeks, starting May 20. Other countries listed to hold the rotating presidency include China, Colombia, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ecuador. This wouldn’t be the first time North Korea has held the conference’s presidency. The last time was in 2011 under North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-il. That appointment was so controversial that Canada boycotted it.

Now, it’s time for Kim Jong-il’s son, Kim Jong-un, to take over.

This comes at a time when North Korea has been ramping up its ballistic missile program. On January 30, it launched its largest missile test in five years. South Korean authorities said the test appeared to be of an intermediate-range ballistic missile (irbm). North Korea hasn’t tested an irbm since 2017. This was the seventh missile Kim has launched just in January of this year. This brings the nation closer to breaking its self-imposed suspension of testing intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons. Kim Jong-un has also resumed his personal appearances at missile tests again, after a break of nearly two years.

The Conference on Disarmament is affiliated with the United Nations. It was established in the late 1970s as a negotiating forum to phase out the threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction. The organization’s aims, per the UN website, are:

  • Cessation of the nuclear arms race and nuclear disarmament
  • Prevention of nuclear war, including all related matters
  • Prevention of an arms race in outer space
  • Effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon states against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons
  • New types of weapons of mass destruction and new systems of such weapons; radiological weapons
  • Comprehensive program of disarmament
  • Transparency in armaments.

The latest missile tests show that North Korea isn’t interested in following through with many of these provisions. And the rogue nation acquired nuclear weapons at the latest in 2006, years after it had joined the Conference on Disarmament. This—and Pyongyang’s nuclear program since 2006—shows that North Korea isn’t a reliable partner in the fight for nuclear disarmament.

“North Korea … is the only country to have withdrawn from the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (npt) to pursue a nuclear weapons program,” think tank Nuclear Threat Initiative wrote in its North Korea profile. “North Korea has developed sophisticated nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles despite international condemnation, and diplomatic efforts to denuclearize the country have thus far been met with failure.”

The conference’s selection of North Korea for the presidency makes it a farcical joke. But it’s not only North Korea’s presidency tarnishing the organization’s reputation.

Another country to hold the rotating presidency is China, which currently has the world’s third-largest stockpile of nuclear weapons. It is currently threatening war with Taiwan. Meanwhile, the conference’s secretary general, Tatiana Valovaya, is a Russian diplomat. Russia has the biggest stockpile of non-strategic nuclear weapons (weapons with smaller ranges and yields) in the world. Russia is currently escalating a conflict with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization over Ukraine.

Other controversial countries belong to the conference, including Iran, Pakistan and Syria. Iran is infamous for its controversial nuclear program, which it has recently escalated. Pakistan is a very unstable nuclear state. In its ongoing civil war, Syria has used chemical weapons on its own civilians.

One purpose of the UN is, according to Article 1 of its founding charter: “To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression of other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace.”

Weapons of mass destruction are the greatest threat to international peace and security. Yet the UN, the premier world peace organization, has the world’s top nuclear offenders running its nuclear disarmament conference. Does this make any sense?

Outside the UN headquarters in New York is a statue of a man beating a sword into a plowshare. It was donated to the UN by the Soviet Union in 1959. The statue is a reference to Isaiah 2:4, which speaks of a future time of peace when mankind “shall beat their swords into plowshares ….” The Soviet Union donated this statue to promote peace—while its Communist regime persecuted religious believers. Three years later, Moscow instigated the Cuban Missile Crisis. This was the closest the world has come to nuclear war.

The Prophet Isaiah warned, “The way of peace they know not …” (Isaiah 59:8). Is peace, then, impossible? Is Kim Jong-un man’s best hope for avoiding nuclear war? Is war an evil that man can never escape from?

Notice the prophecy in Isaiah 2: “[A]nd they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (verse 4). The Bible is clear that man does not know the way of peace today. Man’s attempts to bring peace have resulted in great wars. But the Bible is equally clear that peace is coming.

“You don’t have to believe it,” wrote late theologian Herbert W. Armstrong in his booklet The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like. “It will happen, regardless. It is sure—the world’s only sure hope. This advance good news of tomorrow is as certain as the rising of tomorrow’s sun. Humanity won’t bring it about—it is going to be done to us. Humanity is going to be forced to be happy—to enjoy world peace—to see universal abundance and joy fill the Earth.”

It’s hard to imagine universal peace, abundance and joy filling this world sick with war, poverty and other societal ills. But as Mr. Armstrong wrote, mankind will soon be given peace. To learn more, please request a free copy of The Wonderful World Tomorrow—What It Will Be Like.