China's UN envoy said Monday that the UN Security Council's response to the recent launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) should be cautious and proportionate.

"Our position on the reaction from the Security Council has been very clear and consistent. That is, the reaction from the Security Council has to be cautious and proportionate," Zhang Yesui told reporters after the council adopted a presidential statement on the DPRK launch.

Chinese UN envoy Zhang Yesui talks to the press, after a UN Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York April 13, 2009. Zhang said here on Monday that the UN Security Council's response to the recent launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) should be cautious and proportionate.[Liu Xin/Xinhua]

In the statement, the 15-member council "condemns" the April 5 launch by the DPRK and calls on all member states to "comply fully with their obligations under resolution 1718," adopted by the council in October 2006.

The statement also called for the early resumption of the six-party talks, which gather China, the DPRK, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the United States.

"The reaction from the Security Council should be conducive to maintaining peace and stability in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia, and conducive to the six-party talks and also to the process of denuclearization in the Korean Peninsula, and it should be also conducive to safeguarding the international nonproliferation regime," he said.

"That's why we had been consistent in the Security Council adopting a presidential statement instead of a resolution with new sanctions," he said.

Zhang called on all the parties concerned to work together to maintain peace and stability in the region, promote the six-party talks and push forward denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula.

The UN Security Council on April 13, 2009 adopted a presidential statement on the recent launch by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. .[Liu Xin/Xinhua]

(Xinhua News Agency April 14, 2009)