The United States will push the United Nations Security Council to pass tough new North Korea sanctions after Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, Ambassador Nikki Haley said on Monday.
Speaking after an emergency council meeting, Ms. Haley said the U.S. is circulating a draft sanctions resolution and aims for a vote next Monday.
Earlier, Ms. Haley pushed the council to approve the new restrictions, saying: “Only the strongest sanctions will enable us to resolve this problem through diplomacy.”
The sanctions could target North Korean officials, the national airliner Koryo, oil shipments to the government, textile exports, and North Korean workers abroad, according to media reports.
France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and United States requested the emergency meeting after North Korea carried out a nuclear test on Sunday, its sixth and most powerful to date.
The nuclear test triggered a 6.3 magnitude earthquake. Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization officials are working to determine the source of a second shock recorded in the area; experts believe it may be geological movement from the test.
State-run news network KCNA said the test was of a hydrogen bomb to be delivered via a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile.
South Korea said on Sunday it had indications North Korea was planning another ICBM test. Pyongyang fired a medium-range missile over Japan last week.
South Korean defense official Chang Kyung-soo told parliament the ICBM would be fired into the Pacific Ocean. He gave no timeframe for the possible test.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis has vowed a “massive military response” to any attack on Japan or South Korea.
South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported that President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump spoke by phone on Monday and agreed to remove the payload limit on South Korea’s missiles.
The South Korean defense ministry earlier said it would deploy additional Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense launchers alongside two already set up in Seongju. China and Russia have been highly critical of the U.S.-made THAAD system.
New sanctions rely heavily on China and Russia, which both have a veto at the U.N. Security Council. China on Sunday urged Pyongyang not to carry out the ICBM test, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said sanctions are not having a “positive outcome” thus far. He added that Russia will take part in all U.N. Security Council discussions on North Korea.
The U.N. Security Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea last month following its two ICBM tests in July.
