The United States is pushing for a new UN Security Council resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea following Pyongyang’s new ballistic missile launch, which cut off tobacco exports and cut oil exports by 50 percent. Washington is also pushing for the blacklist of hacker group Lazarus, according to a draft decision read by Reuters yesterday.
The United States distributed the same draft resolution to the 15 members of the Security Council this week. It was not immediately clear if and when it would be put to the vote. A resolution requires nine affirmative votes and no vetoes by Russia, China, France, Britain and the United States.
Russia and China have already expressed opposition to toughening sanctions against North Korea following the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile last month. This was the first launch since 2017.
The US special envoy for North Korea, Sung Kim, told reporters last week that the United States had discussed the draft decision with China and Russia, but “unfortunately, I can not say that we have had productive discussions with them since. ”
U.S. officials and South Korean officials, as well as analysts, have said there is growing evidence that North Korea will soon test a nuclear weapon for the first time since 2017.
The draft UN resolution drafted by the United States will extend a ban on ballistic missile launches, including cruise missiles or “any other system capable of carrying nuclear weapons.”
At the same time, it will halve oil exports to North Korea to two million barrels per year, while it will also reduce exports of refined crude oil to 250,000 barrels. The same draft decision provides for North Korea’s exports “of fossil fuels, oil and refining products.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is an avid smoker and often appears in state media photos with a cigarette in his hand. The US draft decision will ban the export of tobacco, but also industrially processed tobacco to North Korea
North Korea has been subject to UN sanctions since 2006. These sanctions have been unanimously strengthened by the Security Council in the years that followed and in an effort to reduce funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.
SOURCE: AMPE
Source: Capital
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