NK rejects nuclear sanctions

NORTH Korea has called the latest UN sanctions to target the country “an act of war” that violates its sovereignty, and said it is a “pipe dream” for the US to think it will give up its nuclear weapons.

The UN Security Council unanimously approved tough new sanctions against North Korea on Friday in response to its latest launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang says can reach anywhere on the US mainland.

The resolution was drafted by the US and negotiated with the North’s closest ally, China.

“We define this ‘sanctions resolution’ rigged up by the US and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region and categorically reject the ‘resolution’,” North Korea’s foreign ministry said in a statement.

The ministry said the sanctions were tantamount to a “complete economic blockade” of North Korea.

“If the US wishes to live safely, it must abandon its hostile policy towards the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and learn to coexist with the country that has nuclear weapons and should wake up from its pipe dream of our country giving up nuclear weapons which we have developed and completed through all kinds of hardships,” said the statement, carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency.

The resolution adopted by the Security Council includes sharply lower limits on North Korea’s refined oil imports, the return home of all North Koreans working overseas within 24 months, and a crackdown on ships smuggling banned items including coal and oil to and from the country.