Putin echoes China in spurning U.S. on N. Korea sanctions

Russian President Vladimir Putin again rejected U.S. calls for new sanctions against North Korea after its sixth and most powerful nuclear test, echoing China’s resistance to more punitive measures to pressure Pyongyang into abandoning its atomic and missile programs.

The Russian leader criticized sanctions as “useless and ineffective,” instead urging the international community to offer security guarantees to North Korea.

“They’ll eat grass, but they won’t abandon their program unless they feel secure,” he told reporters Tuesday at an emerging markets summit in Xiamen, China.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Monday the Trump administration would seek the strongest possible sanctions against Kim Jong Un’s regime. Kim was “begging for war” after testing what he claimed was a hydrogen bomb, she said after a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

Haley said the U.S. would circulate new draft sanctions and wants the Security Council to vote on them Sept. 11.

Japan is singing the same tune as the U.S., with Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso on Tuesday calling for additional measures. “There’s no chance of talks progressing without increasing pressure,” he told reporters in Tokyo.

The standoff between North Korea and the U.S. has become the most dangerous foreign crisis facing President Donald Trump as the isolated state accelerates its program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

Putin condemned what he described as a policy of whipping up war hysteria, which he said could lead to a “global catastrophe and a huge number” of human casualties. “There’s no other path except for a peaceful, diplomatic resolution of the North Korean nuclear problem,” he said.