UN places harsh new sanctions on NKorea
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council on Saturday unanimously adopted a resolution to impose the most punishing sanctions yet against North Korea over its defiance of a ban on testing missiles and nuclear bombs.
The resolution could reduce North Korea’s annual export revenue by $1 billion, or about onethird of its current total.
American U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who introduced the resolution, said the adoption by all 15 members of the council signified what she called “a strong, united step toward holding North Korea accountable for its behavior.”
Before she walked into the Security Council chambers for the vote, Haley stopped and told reporters: “All this ICBM and nuclear irresponsibility has to stop.”
The U.S. distributed a draft of the resolution Friday after weeks of negotiations, primarily with China, North Korea’s most important trading partner.
North Korea has defied a half-dozen Security Council resolutions since 2006 over its nuclear and missile development, which the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, has called a necessary and just response to military threats from the U.S. and South Korea.
The latest resolution was a direct reaction to two North Korean tests last month of intercontinental ballistic missiles that appeared capable of reaching the continental U.S.
Under the resolution’s provisions, all exports of North Korean coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood will be prohibited. The resolution also imposes new restrictions on North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank and bans North Korea from increasing the number of workers it sends abroad. The earnings of those workers are an important source of foreign revenue for Kim’s autocracy.
The Security Council vote was held against the backdrop of mixed signals by the Trump administration on how to deal with North Korea, which has remained in what amounts to a suspended state of war with the U.S. since the armistice that halted the Korean War in 1953.
Even as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson signaled recently that the U.S. did not want to pick a fight with Kim and was not interested in regime change, the U.S. military tested an intercontinental ballistic missile and conducted military drills with South Korea.