Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
U.N. passes N. Korea sanctions
Ban on textile exports, limits on oil fall short of U.S. goals
The United Nations Security Council approved new sanctions aimed at punishing North Korea for its latest missile and nuclear tests after the U.S. dropped key demands in order to win support from Russia and China.
The 15-member Security Council passed the resolution unanimously Monday after a week of talks that began when Kim Jong Un’s regime tested its most powerful nuclear bomb. The resolution seeks to cut imports of refined petroleum products to 2 million barrels a year, ban textile exports and give countries the ability to freeze assets of cargo ships whose operators don’t agree to inspections on the high seas.
The petroleum limits would shave off roughly 10 percent of what North Korea currently gets from China, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
“We are acting in response to a dangerous new development,” U.S. envoy Nikki Haley told the Security Council after the vote. “These are the strongest measures ever imposed on North Korea,” she said, adding that the U.S. remains willing to act alone to stop Kim’s nuclear program if necessary.
While Russia and China — which hold veto power on the Security Council — agreed to the restrictions, the result is less than Haley had sought when she pushed for a ban on oil and a freeze on Kim’s assets abroad. Moreover, it remained wholly unclear whether the additional penalties would persuade North Korea to halt its nuclear and ballistic missile tests.
Haley reacted to the bomb test last week by calling for the fullest range of international sanctions, including a cutoff of all oil supplies, in a new Security Council resolution.
Those demands were toned down in negotiations that followed with her Russian and Chinese counterparts. Late Sunday, after a series of closed meetings, a revised draft emerged, setting a cap on oil exports to North Korea but not blocking them altogether.
The resolution asks countries around the world to inspect ships going in and out of North Korea’s ports, a provision put in place by the Security Council in 2009. But the resolution does not authorize the use of force for ships that do not comply, as the U.S. had originally proposed. The resolution also requires those inspections to be done with the consent of the countries where the ships are registered, which opens the door to violations.
Under the latest resolution, those ships could face penalties, but the original language proposed by the United States went much further, empowering countries to interdict ships suspected of carrying weapons material or fuel into North Korea and to use “all necessary measures” — diplomatic code for the deployment of military force — to enforce compliance.
Nor does the resolution impose a travel ban or asset freeze on Kim, as the original U.S. draft had set out. The new measure also adds a caveat to the original language that would have banned the import of North Korean laborers altogether, saying that countries should not provide work authorization papers unless necessary for humanitarian assistance or denuclearization. The weakened language was a nod to Russia, a big user of imported North Korean labor.
North Korea’s state media attacked both Haley and the resolution ahead of the vote, vowing the U.S. would face “the greatest pain and suffering it had ever gone through in its entire history.”
“The DPRK shall make absolutely sure that the U.S. pays a due price,” the Korean Central News Agency said, citing a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and using initials for North Korea’s formal name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
U.S. officials said the new measures would cut North Korean exports by 90 percent, pinching the regime’s ability to get hard currency. The textile ban would cost North Korea about $726 million a year, the U.S. said.
Yet Kim has repeatedly shrugged off previous sanctions, staying focused on the goal of developing an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of delivering a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland.
The Security Council has called for the resumption of six-party talks aimed at negotiating a complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Those talks — which included North Korea, South Korea, China, Russia, Japan and the U.S. — broke off in 2009.
The Security Council vote comes just over a month after U.N. diplomats targeted about $1 billion in North Korean exports. Short of a military conflict that analysts said could lead to millions of deaths and the destruction of Seoul, economic sanctions are among the few options available.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly urged China to use its influence to rein in Kim’s regime, and he’s said Japan and South Korea can buy more sophisticated U.S. military equipment to defend themselves from attack. China supplies most of North Korea’s estimated 10,000 barrels a day of crude oil, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Before the vote, South Korea’s envoy to the U.S. said more could still be done.
“This in fact is the time when we should be doubling down and tripling down on pressure,” Ambassador Ahn Ho-Young said Monday in Washington.