President Obama vowed Tuesday to toughen global sanctions against North Korea after its government conducted a test missile launch as world leaders gathered for summits in Asia.
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“We are going to work diligently together with the most recent United Nations sanctions that are already placing North Korea under the most intense sanctions regime ever”, Obama said.
She said North Korea has carried out 22 missile launches so far this year, and the latest hit “within 300 kilometers of Japan’s coast”.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un provides field guidance during a fire drill of ballistic rockets by Hwasong artillery units of the KPA Strategic Force, in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) in Pyongyang September 6, 2016. The move drew swift condemnation from the US and other world leaders who will gather this month in NY for the United Nations General Assembly.
The two sides also vowed to work together to make sure the latest UN Security Council Sanctions on North Korea are fully implemented.
In January, North Korea said it had successfully detonated a hydrogen bomb, its fourth nuclear test, and vowed to build up its nuclear program as deterrence against potential aggression from the U.S. and its regional allies.
Park told reporters Tuesday that North Korea missile program is “fundamentally threatening the security” of the Korean Peninsula and both leaders defended its position as defensive.
Park described the launches as a “reckless provocation (that) will lead North Korea down the path of self-destruction”.
The press statement urged all United Nations member states “to redouble their efforts” to implement sanctions against Pyongyang, including the toughest measures in two decades imposed by the council in March.
Kim supervised a drill by units “tasked to strike the bases of the USA imperialist aggressor forces in the Pacific operational theatre in a contingency”, KCNA news agency of Pyongyang said.
Koro Bessho, Japan’s U.N. ambassador, added: “We want to have a united and clear message”, without elaborating.
The United Nations Security Council today condemned the ballistic missile launches conducted by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Monday, 5 September.
North Korea’s leader, meanwhile, declared Monday’s launch a success and promised to continue “bolstering up the nuclear force”.
North Korea is banned from importing or exporting nuclear or missile items and technology as well as luxury goods and the March resolution expanded the list of banned items.
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In Seoul, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs hailed the UNSC action as “a strong warning over North Korea’s repeated ballistic missile provocations” and “an expression of unified determination to change” North Korea’s attitude. The defence ministry in Tokyo said the three missiles were estimated to have fallen into Japan’s maritime Exclusive Economic Zone.
