Can anything or anyone deter North Korea from pursuing it’s nuclear ambition and testing? The United Nations Security Council again unanimously stepped up sanctions against reclusive state on Monday over the country’s sixth and most powerful nuclear test on September 3rd, imposing a ban on the country’s textile exports and capping imports of crude oil.
It was the ninth sanctions resolution unanimously adopted by the 15-member council since 2006 over North Korea’s ballistic missile and nuclear programmes. The US watered down an initial tougher draft resolution to win the support of Pyongyang ally China and Russia.
A week ago, US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called for the “strongest possible” sanctions on North Korea and had sought an oil embargo on Pyongyang.
On Monday, Ms Haley said the United States was not looking for war with North Korea and that Pyongyang had “not yet passed the point of no return”.
“If it agrees to stop its nuclear programme, it can reclaim its future. If it proves it can live in peace, the world will live in peace with it,” she told the security council after the council adopted the new sanctions.
Ms Haley added that the latest resolution “would not have happened” without the strong relationship that had developed between US president Donald Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping.
China’s UN ambassador, Liu Jieyi, urged North Korea to “take seriously the expectations and will of the international community” and called on all parties to remain “cool-headed” and not stoke tensions.
Textiles were North Korea’s second-biggest export after coal and other minerals in 2016, totalling $752 million, according to data from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency. Nearly 80 per cent of the textile exports went to China.
The resolution imposes a ban on condensates and natural gas liquids, a cap of 2 million barrels a year on refined petroleum products, and a cap on crude oil exports to North Korea at current levels. China supplies most of North Korea’s crude.
Pyongyang warned the United States on Monday that it would pay a “due price” for spearheading efforts on UN sanctions.
“The world will witness how the DPRK tames the US gangsters by taking a series of actions tougher than they have ever envisaged,” the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
DPRK stands for the North’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
