China has said is restricting trade with North Korea, announcing bans on gold and some coal imports and jet fuel exports, in line with United Nations sanctions.
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Backed by China, the U.N. Security Council adopted a package of fresh sanctions on North Korea earlier last month to punish the North for conducting its fourth nuclear test in January and launching a long-range rocket in February.
North Korea could have already started reprocessing spent nuclear fuel to harvest weapons-grade plutonium in a process that could give Pyongyang enough fissile material for up to three nuclear bombs, a USA research institute said Tuesday.
The escalations to South Korea’s joint annual war games with US forces this year hasn’t helped ease tensions, as 2016’s exercises included a special operation to “decapitate” the North Korean leadership with elite commandos.
“U.S. defense officials insist that the close day-to-day coordination in the alliance ensures that U.S.-ROK communication would be strong in the event of a new contingency”, it said.
China also allows coal from third countries to be shipped from North Korea’s Rajin port.
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing had no immediate comment.
Chinese leaders are reluctant to lean too hard on North Korea for fear the collapse of Kim’s government could set off a flood of refugees and possibly lead to US and South Korean troops being stationed in the North near China’s border. The United States military, however, has believed since at least 2014 that North Korea may have the technical capability to miniaturize nuclear device, even if it had not yet done so.
Satellite images show suspicious activity in a North Korean lab that could separate plutonium for nuclear weapons, said a US website that monitors sensitive sites in the closed country, on April 4.
The test and launch prompted the U.N. Security Council to impose new sanctions.
The Congressional Research Service also said in the report on U.S.-South Korea relations that such a move by the South could result in a series of negative consequences, including economic sanctions on Seoul and a nuclear arms race in the region.
The Rodong-1 missile, an indigenously produced North Korean ballistic missile developed from Scud technology, has an estimated maximum range of between 1,000 and 1,500 kilometers.
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The new 88-second video – entitled “If the ultimatum goes unanswered” – showed rockets fired from mobile launchers in the North slamming into the Blue House and destroying the buildings in a ball of fire.
