UN diplomats: US and China agree on new NKorea sanctions

The United States has circulated a draft UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution to expand sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear activities, bringing the restrictive measures against Pyongyang to an unprecedented level, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said.

“North Korea as a whole (is) very, very problematic in terms of their thirst to have a nuclear capability”, Haney told reporters, citing Pyongyang’s indifference to Security Council resolutions and its provocative attacks on South Korea.

T he US will formally present a draft resolution seeking toughened sanctions against North Korea to the UN Security Council later on Thursday, US spokesman Kurtis Cooper said.

He said China was urging a “parallel track” in which there were both talks on denuclearization — the top priority of the United States — and replacing the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a formal peace treaty, a key demand of Pyongyang.

They “send a clear message to the North Korean regime: (.) we will work tirelessly and collectively to stop your nuclear program”, she added.

Whether the development, confirmed today by diplomats at the UN Security Council, means that China will take steps to prevent North Korean ships from bringing coal and iron ore to Chinese ports remains unclear.

It is a decade since the council first imposed sanctions on North Korea for its 2006 nuclear test, and diplomats said a sharp ramping up of restrictions was necessary since Pyongyang has proved its determination to flout at all costs attempts at constraining its nuclear and missile programs.

The draft resolution came after an agreement was reached between the United States and China, which has been reluctant to put crippling economic sanctions against North Korea due to fears over a collapse of the North Korean economy.

The United States and China have agreed to place tougher financial sanctions on North Korea.

“We remain clear-eyed about the prospects of an immediate change in DPRK’s behaviour but we have seen how robust sanctions can alter a government’s risky nuclear ambitions in other contexts”, Ms Power said.

The measure also authorizes $50 million over five years for radio broadcasts into North Korea and to support humanitarian assistance programs.

“I think that his stated goal is to protect his regime and if he thought his regime were challenged, he states that he would use WMD (weapons of mass destruction)”, U.S. Forces Korea commander Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti said of Kim, who also is believed to have stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. A vote is expected in the coming days.

The new proposed United Nations resolution would ban supplying North Korea with aviation fuel, including rocket fuel.

North Korea launched a satellite into space over the weekend, but now we’ve learned that it is spinning out of control.

After the Washington and Beijing agreed on the draft resolution, French Ambassador Francois Delattre said “the conditions are now met” for a “strong and consensual” response from the Security Council. It is the fundamental difference between China’s policy and that of the U.S., South Korea and Japan.

North Korean textile exports to China expanded to $741 million in 2014 from $186 million in 2010, and the goods are made mostly at factories run by the North Korean military or the ruling Workers’ Party, analysts and officials in Seoul said. North Korea is already under a raft of global sanctions, but the new proposal would tighten them and impose new bans.