UNITED
NATIONS (AP) — The United States called for a vote Monday on a U.N.
resolution that would impose the toughest-ever sanctions on North Korea,
a move that could lead to a showdown with the country's biggest trading
partner China and its neighbor Russia.
The
Trump administration adopted a totally new approach with this
resolution, circulating an American draft Tuesday and setting a vote six
days later. With previous sanctions resolutions, the U.S. spent weeks
and sometimes months negotiating the text with China and then presenting
a resolution to the rest of the Security Council for a vote.
Several diplomats said the U.S. demand for a speedy council vote was
aimed at putting maximum pressure on China and reflected Washington's
escalating concern over North Korea's latest nuclear test, which its
leaders touted as a hydrogen bomb, and its recent ballistic missile
launch over Japan.
Britain's
U.N. Ambassador Matthew Rycroft, who backs "robust" new sanctions, said
Thursday that the U.S. proposals to ban all oil imports and textile
exports and prohibit North Koreans from working overseas — which helps
fund and fuel the country's nuclear and missile programs — are "a
proportionate response" to its "illegal and reckless behavior."
Rycroft
stressed that "maximum possible pressure" must be exerted on North
Korea to change course and give diplomacy a chance to end the crisis.
The
proposed U.S. sanctions would also freeze all foreign financial assets
of the government and its leader, Kim Jong Un. The U.S. draft also
identified nine ships that have carried out activities prohibited by
previous U.N. resolutions and would authorize any U.N. member state to
stop these vessels on the high seas without their consent and use "all
necessary measures" — which in U.N. language includes force — to carry
out an inspection and direct the vessel to a port.
Professor
Joseph DeThomas of Pennsylvania State University, a former U.S.
ambassador and State Department official who dealt with North Korea,
said the U.S. demand for quick council action is "an indicator of how
the administration thinks time has run out."
"My
sense is they believe that they don't have time for a delicate
diplomatic dance," he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview
Friday. "The other possibility ... is they want to see the color of
China's money. They're putting down the marker here and saying 'OK, Are
you prepared to do what is necessary to put pressure on North Korea at a
moment when we're simply out of time?'"
The
diplomats, speaking on condition of anonymity because discussions on
the resolution have been private, said all 15 Security Council members
discussed the draft on Friday, and both China and Russia appeared
willing to negotiate.
Russia
has said sanctions aren't working and President Vladimir Putin
expressed concern that a total oil cutoff could hurt the North Korean
people. Beijing and Moscow have called for a resolution that focuses on a
political solution and have proposed a freeze-for-freeze that would
halt North Korean nuclear and missile tests in exchange for the U.S. and
South Korea halting their joint military exercises — an initiative
rejected by the Trump administration.
There
was no word on the outcome of negotiations, and whether any changes
sought by the Russians and Chinese were acceptable to the United States.
A
brief statement from the U.S. Mission to the United Nations late Friday
said: "This evening, the United States informed the U.N. Security
Council that it intends to call a meeting to vote on a draft resolution
to establish additional sanctions on North Korea on Monday, September
11."
U.N.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called the nuclear risk in
North Korea the most dangerous crisis in the world today, told reporters
Tuesday that "the unity of the Security Council is absolutely crucial."
He explained that only a united council can provide the pressure needed
to enable successful negotiations to take place to denuclearize the
Korean Peninsula.
DeThomas
agreed that it was unwise to break the unity of the Security Council,
but he said the U.S. administration is unlikely to accept "a very
watered down approach."
"It's
clear that American diplomacy over the past two decades has failed
because this is where we are with North Korea, but if we failed, the
Chinese ought to be abjectly embarrassed over their failures," he said.
"We have no leverage. They have a lot of leverage. They have produced
nothing."
"To
get the situation contained without war is going to be really hard, and
that's if we've got our diplomacy right," he said. "If we start
breaking crockery diplomatically, I don't see how you get anywhere
without the Russians and Chinese — especially the Chinese."
DeThomas said putting the Chinese "on the other team" won't benefit the United States in the long-term.
He
explained that this would force the U.S., and possibly Japan and South
Korea, to try to do things unilaterally to increase pressure on North
Korea. But he said trying to stop goods and material flowing from China
to North Korea without U.N. backing would substitute a U.S.-China
confrontation for the current nuclear weapons crisis with the Democratic
People's Republic of Korea, the country's official name.
As
for the North Koreans, their official news agency on Friday said the
country's "nuclear weaponization ... has reached its final phase."
The
KCNA report sharply criticized U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley for playing
"the flagship role" in the Trump administration's "hideous sanctions and
pressure racket against the DPRK."
The
agency called Haley "a political prostitute" and dismissed as "rubbish"
her comments at an emergency Security Council meeting Monday following
the latest nuclear test that the DPRK is "begging for a war." The agency
accused the U.S. of being the "chieftain of aggression and war and
wrecker of peace."
The
U.S. Mission to the United Nations said it had no comment on the KCNA
report, which concluded by saying: "The U.S. administration will have to
pay a dear price for her tongue-lashing."
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