Trump delight as China backs UN sanctions on N Korea

DONALD Trump yesterday praised new UN sanctions on North Korea.

The US President said the measures were the ‘largest ever’ and had the backing of China and Russia.

The White House has been trying to enlist Beijing’s help to pressure Pyongyang diplomatically and economically. US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said the UN move ‘was a good outcome’ as he met South Korea’s top diplomat.

The new sanctions could cut off a third of North Korea’s estimated £2.3billion in annual exports, potentially depriving Kim Jong-un’s regime of funds for its weapons programmes.

All countries are now banned from importing North Korean coal, iron, lead and seafood.

The Washington-drafted resolution follows Pyongyang’s unprecedented testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile last month.

China yesterday urged North Korea to stop its missile launches and nuclear

tests. Foreign minister Wang Yi said he had told his counterpart in Pyongyang, Ri Yong Ho: ‘Do not violate the UN decision or provoke the international community’s goodwill by conducting missile launches or nuclear tests.’

He appealed to other governments to resume the six-nation talks that involve the North, the US, Russia, Japan and South Korea, as well as Beijing.

‘The aim is to bring the peninsula nuclear issue back to the negotiating table and seek a solution through negotiations until the denuclearisation of the peninsula and the stability of the peninsula are achieved,’ he said.

North Korea pulled out of the six-way talks in 2009 to protest against the international condemnation of a long-range rocket launch.

The two intercontinental ballistic missiles it tested last month are capable of reaching the US mainland.

‘Go back to the negotiating table’