US wants China to decide on North Korea sanctions soon

The United States is pressuring China to decide in the coming days on whether to back tougher UN sanctions on North Korea after weeks of negotiations on a response to Pyongyang’s missile launches, diplomats said. US Ambassador Nikki Haley has been in talks with her Chinese counterpart on a proposed sanctions resolution since North Korea launched a first intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4. But China, North Korea’s main ally and trading partner, has yet to agree to the new measures even after Pyongyang’s second ICBM test last Friday again raised questions on how the UN Security Council will respond.

“In the coming days, we’ll understand whether there’ll be a resolution,” Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told reporters on Wednesday.

Japan’s Ambassador Koro Bessho expressed hope that sanctions will be agreed this week. “I hope we can get it done in days,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

Ms Haley had declared that the “time for talk was over” and that “China must decide” whether it will agree to the new raft of sanctions, aimed at ramping up the pressure on North Korea to change its behaviour.

The US Ambassador warned that a weak resolution would be “worse than nothing” because it would send a message to Kim Jong-Un that global powers are unwilling to unite to challenge him. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the weekend, on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Southeast Asian ASEAN group in Manila.

If the United States and China agree on a draft resolution, the Security Council could meet quickly to vote on the sanctions.