JONG-UN ‘BEGGING FOR WAR’
The US has accused North Korea of “begging for war” and pushed for the “strongest possible measures” on Pyongyang following its sixth and most powerful nuclear test.
As world powers scramble to react to the latest grave step in the North’s rogue weapons programme, South Korea launched major live-fire naval drills to warn its isolated neighbour against any provocations at sea.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council that Washington will present a new sanctions resolution to be negotiated in the coming days, with a view to voting on it Monday.
“Only the strongest sanctions will enable us to resolve this problem through diplomacy,” Ms Haley told the meeting yesterday, called by the US, Britain, France, Japan and South Korea.
North Korea on Sunday triggered global alarm when it detonated what it described as a hydrogen bomb designed for a long-range missile.
The underground blast had a yield of between 50 and 100 kilotons, or on average more than five times more powerful than the bomb detonated over Hiroshima, UN political affairs chief Jeffrey Feltman told the council.
Declaring that “enough is enough,” Ms Haley said incremental sanctions imposed on Pyongyang since 2006 had failed. Leader Kim Jong-Un’s “abusive use of missiles and his nuclear threats show that he is begging for war,” she said.
“War is never something the United States wants and we don’t want it now, but our country’s patience is not unlimited,” she said.
Ms Haley did not spell out what measures Washington was seeking, but diplomats said they could target oil supplies to North Korea — potentially dealing a major blow to the economy.
New sanctions could also seek to curb tourism to the country and ban North Korean laborers sent abroad.