UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council on Thursday unanimously adopted a resolution imposing tougher sanctions against North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s third nuclear test.
The resolution, approved unanimously by the 15-nation council following three weeks of talks between the US and China, calls on the implementation of tighter financial restrictions on North Korea, and for a crack down on its attempts to ship and receive banned cargo in breach of UN sanctions.
It also calls on states to deny aircraft permission to take off, land or fly over their territory if illicit cargo is suspected to be on board.
The resolution condemns North Korea’s latest nuclear test “in the strongest terms” for violating council resolutions, bans further ballistic missile launches, nuclear tests “or any other provocation,” and demands that North Korea return to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It also condemns North Korea’s ongoing nuclear activities, including its uranium enrichment.
It also stresses the UN Security Council’s commitment “to a peaceful, diplomatic and political solution,” and urges that six-party nuclear talks be resumed.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, a former South Korean foreign minister, has welcomed the council’s move, saying that the resolution “sent an unequivocal message to (North Korea) that the international community will not tolerate its pursuit of nuclear weapons.”
Earlier in the days, North Korea threatened that in order to protect its supreme interest, it may exercise its right to launch pre-emptive nuclear strike against anyone who attacks Pyongyang.
“Since the United States is about to ignite a nuclear war, we will be exercising our right to preemptive nuclear attack against the headquarters of the aggressor in order to protect our supreme interest,” the North’s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency.
DND
