WASHINGTON: The US said it would seek a vote Monday on a draft United Nations Security Council resolution on North Korea, as it pushes for fresh sanctions against the regime after its recent nuclear test.
The US informed the Security Council on Friday night of its plan to call the vote, the State Department said in a brief statement, adding it would look to impose further penalties on Pyongyang.
Japanese Defence Minister Itsunori Onodera said he hoped for a firm UN resolution, adding stronger economic penalties might lead to a change in North Korea’s behaviour. "Oil sanctions are the most effective sanctions, so I’d like to strongly ask for this," he said on Saturday on Nippon Television.
President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing the Security Council to adopt a united stance as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un seeks the capability to strike the US with a nuclear weapon. Mr Kim has said he won’t negotiate unless America drops its "hostile" policies.
The US has warned that time is running out to act. North Korea detonated its sixth and most powerful nuclear bomb on Sunday which it said was a hydrogen device, and may launch another intercontinental ballistic missile as soon as Saturday, the anniversary of its founding. Recent missile tests point to advancements by North Korea in developing a missile that could reach the continental US.
Still, a halt to oil exports is far from certain. While China and Russia have condemned Mr Kim’s actions, they have said the ultimate goal needs to be to coax him to the negotiating table and avoid a war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said more sanctions wouldn’t work, while China is wary about cutting off Mr Kim’s economic lifeline to the point it risks collapsing his regime. China is North Korea’s main ally and by far its biggest trading partner, including for oil shipments. Observers have said Beijing might agree to just a partial, or temporary, oil exports ban.
China will support further UN action if it helps restart dialogue with North Korea, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said on Thursday.
The US has circulated a draft resolution that would, aside from barring crude oil shipments to North Korea, ban the nation’s exports of textiles and prohibit employment of its guest workers by other countries, according to a diplomat at the world body.
The proposal, which also calls for freezing Kim’s assets, has been sent to the 15 members of the Security Council, the diplomat said.
North Korean state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun said in an editorial on Saturday that Pyongyang was now a nuclear power and praised Kim for his "brilliant achievement" in strengthening "defences to protect the Korean peninsula from invasion".
"As we’ve built military power by tightening our belts for decades, we’ve stepped up to the status of a nuclear power and a global military power with an atom bomb, a hydrogen bomb and an intercontinental ballistic missile," the newspaper wrote.
North Korea already warned Friday the US will "pay dearly" after its UN ambassador Nikki Haley said the regime was "begging for war". Describing Mrs Haley’s comments as a "hysteric fit," the state-run Korean Central News Agency threatened unspecified retribution.
"The US administration will have to pay a dear price for her tongue-lashing," KCNA said of Mrs Haley’s remarks.
On Thursday, Mr Trump said it wasn’t inevitable that the US would end up in a war with North Korea, but that military action remained an option.
"I would prefer not going the route of the military, but it is something certainly that could happen," Mr Trump said in a press conference at the White House.
He declined to say if he’d accept a nuclear-armed North Korea that can be successfully deterred from using such weapons. A senior administration official later told reporters that the U.S. won’t let North Korea extort or threaten the world with its nuclear programme, and that the administration isn’t sure the country could be deterred.
The official said the danger of war is rising, and the US is also concerned about North Korea exporting its nuclear technology to other nations or to terrorist groups. Any threat to the US or its allies will be met with a massive military response, the official said.
The US is willing to risk a veto of its proposal rather than see it watered down, according to a Security Council diplomat who asked not to be identified while negotiations are ongoing.
The Trump administration also kept up efforts to persuade other governments to scale back diplomatic and economic ties with North Korea. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson raised the issue of North Korean "guest workers" in Kuwait during a meeting with the Middle Eastern country’s foreign minister in Washington on Friday.
Mexico has given North Korea’s ambassador 72 hours to leave the country, though Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray later said it had not broken off diplomatic ties. Philippine Foreign Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano told reporters in Manila on Friday his country was ready to cut trade ties to North Korea.
Earlier in the week, Mr Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping spoke for 45 minutes. While both sides released statements agreeing on the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons from the Korean Peninsula, there was no mention of next steps.