Kim’s ‘act of war’ call

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

The UN Security Council unanimously approved tough sanctions against North Korea 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’,” its foreign ministry said.

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 and learn to co-exist with the country that has nuclear weap- ons 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 its 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.

The Trump administration’s success in achieving the resolution won praise from the top Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee, Ben Cardin, of Maryland.

“That was a good move, a major accomplishment,” senator Cardin said.

He said on Fox News Sunday the stepped-up sanctions should be followed by diplomacy aimed at bringing the US and China together on a sustained effort to ease tensions in that region.

But the resolution does not include even harsher measures sought by the US that would ban all oil imports and freeze international assets of the government and its leader, Kim Jong-un.

The resolution drew criticism from Russia for the short time the Security Council had to consider the draft, and lastminute changes to the text.

Two of those changes were extending the deadline for North Korean workers to return home from 12 months to 24 months — which Russia said was the minimum needed — and reducing the number of North Koreans being put on the UN sanctions blacklist from 19 to 15. AP