US, China call for tougher sanctions on North Korea

The consideration of the US-sponsored UN Security Council’s draft resolution on toughening sanction against North Korea (DPRK) will be possible only next week, Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN Pyotr Ilyichev told reporters on Thursday. Several efforts to thwart the country’s nuclear program in the past were not implemented wholly or have succeeded in preventing North Korea from building its nuclear arsenal. Following these tests, the United Nations Security Council imposed various sanctions on Pyongyang.

The package also calls for blacklisting 17 North Korean individuals and 12 entities, including the three key North Korean state agencies overseeing Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs – the General Reconnaissance Bureau, the Ministry of Atomic Energy Industry and the National Aerospace Development Administration. It also limits or bans certain exports and prohibits supplying North Korea with aviation fuel, including rocket fuel.

“It might look like China is cooperating, but that’ll just be on the surface”, said Kim Dong-yub at Kyungnam University’s Institute of Far Eastern Studies in Seoul.

Washington also wanted to tighten restrictions on North Korean banks’ access to the worldwide financial system, the diplomats said.

The Global Times, an influential Chinese tabloid published by the ruling Communist Party, said in an editorial that North Korea “deserves the punishment” of new sanctions, but China should “cushion Washington’s harsh sanctions to some extent”.

The Security Council is expected to vote on the draft over the weekend or on Monday at the latest.

North Korea’s state-controlled channel KCTV has previously said the exercises are the “most cruel and evil act” which aims to “destroy North Korean homes and lives”.

The draft resolution also proposes banning all exports of aviation fuel to North Korea, except for in “essential” and “humanitarian” cases, which could make it hard stage an air show planned for September in the port city of Wonsan that is to include aerobatic displays by the North Korean air force.

Then on February 7, Pyongyang said it had successfully launched an Earth satellite into orbit via the long-range Kwangmyongsong carrier rocket. The Korean War ended in a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.

No other nation in the worldwide community supports China’s claims of ownership in the region, and five others contend that the territory China claims is actually theirs: Malaysia, Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Brunei.

“There’s a great possibility that this is part of China’s economic sanctions against the North for carrying out a “rocket” launch”, the businessman said, adding this would pull the plug on 50 percent of China’s trade with the North, according to the report.

“I do think that it is indicative of how productive diplomacy can be”.

In the words of Navy Admiral Cecil Haney, who heads U.S. Strategic Command, “we’re at the brick wall stage”.

The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), an advanced US missile defense system, in the Republic of Korea (ROK) may impair, or even threaten China’s security interests, visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said here Thursday.