US, Japan, South Korea seek additional UNSC sanctions against North

The US, Japan and South Korea today sought additional UN Security Council sanctions against the North Korean regime to send a message that there would be "consequences for its destabilising" actions, the White House said.

The demand came after a meeting between US President Donald Trump, his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in, and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Hamburg, Germany, on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit.

They "decided to press for the early adoption of a new UNSC resolution with additional sanctions to demonstrate to the DPRK that there are serious consequences for its destabilising, provocative, and escalatory actions," according to a joint statement issued after the meeting of the leaders.
DPRK stands for Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.

The leaders called on the international community to "swiftly and fully implement all UNSC resolutions and to take measures to reduce economic relations with the DPRK," said the statement said.

They also called on the countries that border North Korea to make efforts to convince the regime "to abandon its current threatening and provocative path and immediately take steps to denuclearise and halt its ballistic missile programme."

North Korea has been conducting regular missile tests. On July 4, it tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, demonstrating the potential capability to strike Alaska.

This, they said, is a major escalation that directly violates multiple UNSC resolutions and that clearly demonstrates the growing threat the North Korea poses to the United States, South Korea, and Japan, as well as other countries around the world, the joint statement said.

"The leaders affirmed the importance of working together to counter the DPRK threat and to achieve the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula in a peaceful manner, a shared goal among the three countries," it said.

"They also committed to continue to cooperate to apply maximum pressure on the DPRK to change its path, refrain from provocative and threatening actions, and take steps necessary to return to serious denuclearisation dialogue," the joint statement said.

The United States, South Korea and Japan will never accept a nuclear armed North Korea, it said.

-PTI