Not going to run scared from North Korea: US envoy Nikki Haley

The US and the international community is "not going to run scared from North Korea", US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley has said after Pyongyang refused to roll back its nuclear weapons programme.

"All of us should be concerned about what's happening right now. But I think the signs that we're seeing from North Korea, they're concerned back. Now they see the international community is standing with one voice. China didn't pull off.

Russia didn't pull off. And all of the Security Council and the international community said that's enough. You've got to stop it," Haley told Fox News in an interview. "It's reckless. It's irresponsible. And the international community really laid down the groundwork of saying we're not going to watch you do this anymore.

Now, North Korea has to respond. And yes, they're going to threaten, they're going to do all these things. But we're not going to run scared from them," the top Indian-American diplomat said.

Haley praised both Russia and China for the UN Security Council vote on North Korean sanctions. "Ninety per cent of the trade that North Korea has is with China. So that's why they were so important to this resolution. And what we saw was the fact that China did step up these are hard-hitting sanctions that we're doing.

Over a billion dollars out of their USD 3 billion export," she said. "What was more important was China stepped up and said, we will follow through on these sanctions. We will make sure that we follow. And they encouraged the international community to follow it. China feels this. I mean when I talk to the Chinese ambassador, when that missile test took off, they they felt it in China. It was so close to their border that the ground shook," she said.

"The people of China now feel it. They're disturbed enough to say that they now have to do their part. And now we have to just stay on them to make sure they do that," Haley said.

-PTI