US battles for global push on North Korea amid Russia, China doubts
WASHINGTON: The United States is battling to maintain international solidarity in the face of North Korea’s nuclear threat after Russia warned that sanctions have failed and China side-stepped talk of an oil embargo.
The stakes could scarcely be higher in the stand-off, after the US warned that Kim JongUn’s regime would be ‘utterly destroyed’ if its pursuit of a longrange nuclear missile arsenal provokes a military response.
But US-led efforts to isolate Kim, cripple his economy and force him to negotiate his own disarmament failed to prevent this week’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of reaching US cities.
Washington urged tough action at an emergency meeting of the Security Council Thursday and President Donald Trump complained that North Korea’s neighbor China has failed to convince Kim to back down.
“The Chinese Envoy, who just returned from North Korea, seems to have had no impact on Little Rocket Man,” Trump said, in a tweet, using his favorite term of abuse for the North Korean dictator.
“Hard to believe his people, and the military, put up with living in such horrible conditions.”
Trump’s spokeswoman Sarah Sanders later clarified that the United States is not seeking regime change in North Korea, but is focused on the ‘denuclearisation’ of the Korean peninsula.
And Pentagon chief Jim Mattis said Washington would pursue ‘unrelenting’ efforts on the diplomatic front, including before the UN Security Council, to bring Pyongyang to heel.
“Our diplomats will speak from a position of strength because we do have military options,” he said.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who met Thursday with Germany’s Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, was more cautious in his response to China — but did press for tougher action to cut of the North’s fuel supplies.
“I think the Chinese are doing a lot. We do think they could do more with the oil and we’re really asking them to please restrain more of the oil, not cut it off completely,” he said — a move that would nevertheless deal a crippling blow to Pyongyang’s economy.
Tillerson’s call came after the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, issued a stark warning to the UN Security Council.
“The dictator of North Korea made a choice yesterday that brings the world closer to war, not farther from it,” she said.
“If war comes, make no mistake: The North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed.”
But her call for nations to ‘cut off all ties with North Korea’ was rejected by Moscow, with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov saying Russia saw the proposal ‘negatively’.