US to push for sanctions pressure against N. Korea

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

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart will attend the gathering here, 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 had taken concrete steps towards abandoning its nuclear weapons.

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

While there had been small signs of progress, news reports indicated that Pyongyang was continuing to build rockets, and there were mounting concerns that the enforcement of United Nations sanctions on the North was 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 were “an opportunity to remind all countries of their obligations in adherence” of UN Security Council resolutions, the official said.