The diplomat said all 15 Security Council members agree that North Korea should be denuclearized, and this will be reflected in the new resolution.
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North Korea brought global condemnation on itself last week after claiming to have detonated a hydrogen bomb, although experts doubted the atomic test reached the thermonuclear level.
Kim, the United States’ special representative for North Korea policy, made the remarks in Seoul on Wednesday after talks with Hwang Joon-kook, South Korea’s special envoy for Korean Peninsula peace and security affairs, and Kimihiro Ishikane, director-general of the Japanese Foreign Ministry’s Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau. The country is now being sanctioned by the United Nations over its nuclear programs.
Since Friday, South Korea has been blasting anti-Pyongyang propaganda and K-pop songs from huge speakers along the border. The ministry would not confirm the report, nor another by Yonhap that said North Korea had started its own broadcasts likely meant to keep its soldiers from hearing the South Korean messages.
We all need to take seriously North Korea’s nuclear weapons testing.
The topic of North Korea came up at a meeting in July 2014 between Xi and his South Korean counterpart, Park Geun-hye. North Korea had accepted to attend the annual high-profile gathering of hundreds of heads of state, CEOs and public figures in the Swiss ski resort of Davos.
Wednesday’s incident comes amid increased tensions between the rival nations after North Korea claimed it had carried out its fourth nuclear test last Wednesday, angering Western powers and alarming the country’s neighbour.
South Korea warned the North that the United States and its allies were working on sanctions to inflict “bone-numbing pain” for the test, and urged China to do its part to rein in its isolated neighbour.
There was no immediate reaction from North Korea, which last sent a delegation to the forum in 1998. In the past two years, North Korea refrained from nuclear tests limiting itself to ballistic missile launches as a response to US-South Korea large-scale military drills. To put this in perspective, however, the USA has conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests, continues to conduct subcritical nuclear tests, has not ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, regularly tests nuclear-capable missiles, and plans to spend $1 trillion modernizing its nuclear arsenal.
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To become law, the legislation must be passed by the US Senate and signed by President Barack Obama.
