Region calls for push against Kim

ABE : N KOREA MUST ABANDON WEAPONS PROGRAMME

Japan and S Korea want allies to up the pressure on provocative rogue state.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe yesterday echoed South Korea’s demand for more pressure on Pyongyang after its nuclear tests as the leaders of the two countries looked to grind down resistance from Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

“The international community must unite in applying the greatest possible pressure on North Korea,” Abe said in a speech alongside Putin and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in at an economic forum in Vladivostok.

“We must make North Korea immediately and fully comply with all relevant United Nations (UN) Security Council resolutions and abandon all its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner,” Abe insisted.

The call came just four days after Pyongyang staged its sixth and most powerful nuclear test to date, claiming a “perfect success” in testing a hydrogen bomb.

The US on Wednesday demanded the United Nations slap an oil embargo on Pyongyang and a freeze on the foreign assets of its leader Kim Jong-Un in a dramatic bid to force an end to the perilous nuclear stand-off.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said yesterday China would support the UN taking further measures against North Korea now.

“We believe that sanctions and pressure are only half of the key to resolving the issue. The other half is dialogue and negotiation,” he added.

Putin has repeatedly insisted that further economic pressure on Pyongyang will not work and that the only route is diplomacy.

“It is impossible to intimidate them,” Putin said in Vladivostok.

US ambassador Nikki Haley said the US would be seeking a vote at the council on new sanctions on Monday.

The EU said it is preparing to increase its own sanctions against North Korea, as part of international efforts to punish the rogue state.

“I will put forward to ministers to work in the coming days to increase EU autonomous sanctions,” Federica Mogherini said as she arrived for a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Tallinn.

Despite the mounting pressure on leader Kim Jong-Un, the message from Pyongyang remains one of fierce defiance.

In a sign of the international stakes over Pyongyang’s latest test, China said on Thursday that it had lodged a diplomatic protest with South Korea following its announcement that it would increase deployments of a US anti-missile system.

In a phone call with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, US President Donald Trump on Wednesday insisted that military action against North Korea was not his “first choice” and pushed for a diplomatic option. –