US to urge pressure:

Asia

The US will urge the international community to keep up sanctions pressure against North Korea at a security forum in Singapore this week, as concerns mount that Pyongyang has made little progress towards denuclearisation.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart will attend the gathering in the city-state where US President Donald Trump and the North’s leader Kim Jong Un held their historic summit two months ago.

Pompeo and top diplomats from other countries involved in trying to curtail Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions will scrutinise whether the North has taken concrete steps towards abandoning its nuclear weapons.

At his landmark talks with Trump in June, Kim signed up to a vague commitment to “denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula” -- a far cry from long-standing US demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.

While there have been small signs of progress, news reports indicate Pyongyang is continuing to build rockets, and there are mounting concerns that the enforcement of United Nations sanctions on the North is being relaxed by some member states.

A US official said Washington was “concerned” by North Korean violations of UN-approved sanctions, including illegal shipments of oil by sea.

Gatherings like Saturday’s ASEAN Regional Forum are “an opportunity to remind all countries of their obligations in adherence” of UN Security Council resolutions, the official said.

The annual forum, hosted by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), brings together top diplomats