China ‘committed’ to UN curbs
Pyongyang vows to bolster nuclear arsenal in retaliation to latest sanctions
Manila/Seoul, Aug. 7: China is “100 per cent” committed to enforcing the latest round of United Nations sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme, Beijing’s top diplomat said on Monday.
“China will for sure implement that new resolution 100 per cent, fully and strictly,” foreign minister Wang Yi told reporters through a translator on the sidelines of a regional security forum in the Philippine capital.
Meanwhile, North Korea vowed on Monday to bolster its nuclear arsenal and launch “thousandsfold” revenge against the United States in response to tough UN sanctions imposed after its recent intercontinental ballistic missile launches.
The warning came two days after the UN Security Council unanimously approved new sanctions to punish North Korea, including a ban on coal and other exports worth over $1 billion. The US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, called the USdrafted resolution “the single largest economic sanctions package ever levelled against” North Korea. In a statement carried by state media, the North Korean government said the sanctions were a “violent infringement of its sovereignty” that was caused by a “heinous US plot to isolate and stifle” North Korea.
It said the UN sanctions will never force the country to negotiate over its nuclear programme or to give up its push to strengthen its nuclear capability as long as US hostility and nuclear threats persist. The North said it will take an “action of justice,” but didn’t elaborate.
“It’s a wild idea to think the DPRK will be shaken and change its position due to this kind of new sanctions formulated by hostile forces,” said the statement, carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency. DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The North’s statement “rhetorically expresses its anger” against the UN sanctions, but the country is not likely to launch a direct provocation against the United States, said Lim Eul Chul, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Kyungnam University. He said the North could still carry out new missile tests or a sixth atomic bomb test in the coming months under its broader weapons development timetable.
North Korea testlaunched two ICBMs last month as part of its efforts to possess a long-range missile capable of striking anywhere in the mainland US. Both missiles were fired at highly lofted angles and analysts say the weapons could reach parts of the United States including Alaska, Los Angeles and Chicago if fired at a normal, flattened trajectory.
The centerpiece of the UN sanctions is a ban on North Korean exports of coal, iron, lead and seafood products — and a ban on all countries importing those products, estimated to be worth over $1 billion a year in hard currency.
The resolution also bans countries from giving any additional permits to North Korean laborers, another source of foreign currency for the North, and prohibits all new joint ventures with North Korean companies.
According to a Security Council diplomat, coal has been North Korea’s largest export, earning $1.2 billion last year.