China, US reach agreement over North Korea sanctions resolution
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THE United States and China have reached agreement on a UN resolution that would impose tougher sanctions on North Korea as punishment for its latest nuclear test and rocket launch, UN diplomats say.
The US was due to submit the draft to council members yesterday for likely discussion later in the day.
One Security Council diplomat called the draft resolution “significantly substantive” and expressed the hope that it will be adopted in the coming days. Another said the draft had been circulated on Wednesday to the three other permanent council members — Russia, Britain and France.
The council was scheduled to hold closed consultations last night on compliance with the North Korean sanctions resolutions, and the US-China draft could be discussed then with the 10 non-permanent council members.
The comments from both diplomats, who were speaking on condition of anonymity, follow a flurry of activity in Washington, including meetings between China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, and with National Security Adviser Susan Rice on Wednesday afternoon.
National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said Rice and Wang agreed “on the importance of a strong and united international response to North Korea’s provocations, including through a UN Security Council resolution that goes beyond previous resolutions.”
“They agreed that they will not accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state,” Price said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kerry told a Congressional hearing: “We’re on the brink of achieving a strong United Nations Security Council resolution.”
North Korea started off the new year with what it claims was its first hydrogen bomb test on January 6 and followed that up with the launch of a satellite on a rocket on February 7.
Over the past 10 years, the nation has conducted four nuclear tests and launched six long-range missiles — all in violation of Security Council resolutions.
South Korea’s UN Ambassador Oh Joon has urged the Security Council to adopt “extraordinary” measures to make clear to North Korea “that it will no longer tolerate its nuclear weapons development.”
The US, its Western allies and Japan, also pressed for new sanctions that go beyond North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. But Wang said on Tuesday that a new UN resolution alone cannot resolve the nuclear issue and that dialogue was needed.
He said China was urging a “parallel track” in which there were both talks on denuclearization — top priority of the US — and replacing the armistice that ended the 1950-53 Korean War with a formal peace treaty, a key demand of Pyongyang.
While the US and China were discussing a new UN resolution, the US took tougher steps of its own against North Korea, tightening sanctions and announcing it will hold formal talks with South Korea on deploying a missile defense system that China fears could be used against it as well as North Korea.
South Korea and Japan have also announced new measures against Pyongyang.
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