House sends NKorea sanctions bill to president for signature

Beijing has in the past proved reluctant to support biting multilateral sanctions against North Korea, for fear of destabilizing a regime on China’s border.

The legislation centers on imposing mandatory sanctions on those who contribute to the North’s efforts to develop nuclear, missile and other weapons of mass destruction, including importing and exporting related materials.

North Korea is committed to striking the United States with a nuclear-armed missile, but it can’t do so without outside help, due to shortfalls in its own technology, the Pentagon said Friday.

The committee, set up under a bilateral agreement brokered in Stockholm in May, 2014, would also be dissolved, said the statement, which warned of “stronger counter-measures” to follow. “Any provocation will be met with consequences that will shake the Kim [Jong-un] regime to its foundations”.

The sanctions target all individuals involved with North Korea’s nuclear program and “authorizes $10 million annually over the course of five years for expanding North Koreans’ access to media”.

GOP senators and presidential candidates Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida were to return to Washington from campaigning to vote on the bill.

It now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.

Republicans and Democrats joined together to overwhelmingly approve the bill by a vote of 408-2 less than a week after North Korea launched a rocket carrying a satellite into space.

North Korea on Sunday defied global warnings and launched a long-range rocket that the United Nations and others call a cover for a banned test of technology for a missile that could strike the US mainland. Even as Suga announced the new sanctions, he explicitly stated that the door will be kept open for further dialogue on the abductees issue.

He added that the move poses a threat to Japan and to Northeast Asia, and “is absolutely unacceptable”.

Seoul has emphasized that unilateral measures on Pyongyang are important in addition to tougher UN Security Council sanctions.