US DEMANDS for the United Nations security council to condemn North Korean missile launches sparked a row with Russia and China on Monday.

North Korea has launched two test missiles in recent days, which it says is in retaliation to war games being carried out in the region by the US and South Korea.

Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the council that the US will propose a presidential statement condemning the North’s missile launches and urging Pyongyang “to engage in meaningful dialogue.”

A presidential statement from the security council requires the support of all its members, including North Korea’s closest allies, China and Russia.

Ms Thomas-Greenfield said that the US condemned North Korea’s firing of missiles “in the strongest terms” as “flagrant violations” of the council’s ban on the country’s ballistic missile launches.

And she warned the council that its silence and failure to condemn the North’s missile activities “leads to irrelevance.”

But China’s deputy UN ambassador Dai Bing said that joint US-South Korean military exercises “on a higher level and a bigger scale,” the deployment of US strategic assets and Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg’s high-profile visit to Seoul and Tokyo two weeks ago were all “highly provocative” to North Korea “and aggravate a sense of insecurity.”

Russia’s deputy ambassador Dmitry Polyansky told the council that North Korea is responding with missile tests to “the unprecedented military manoeuvres in the region under the US umbrella which are clearly anti-Pyongyang in nature.”

After the council meeting Ms Thomas-Greenfield read a statement on behalf of 10 council nations and South Korea, surrounded by their ambassadors, strongly condemning the latest missile launches and urging the other five council nations to join in condemning “North Korea’s irresponsible behaviour.”