US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson today said that a UN Security Council vote to impose sanctions on North Korea showed that world powers were united behind a push for a denuclearised Korean peninsula.
Speaking at a security forum in Manila, Washington’s senior diplomat said Kim Jong-Un’s regime must halt ballistic missile tests if it wanted to talk to the United States about resolving the existing impasse.
Yesterday, Tillerson held separate talks in Manila with foreign ministers Wang Yi of China and Sergei Lavrov of Russia, both of whom he said were in support of a tough stance on Pyongyang’s arsenal.
While Wang called for a resumption of dialogue with North Korea, Tillerson insisted Kim must first stop the missile tests.
The UN Security Council on Saturday approved a US-drafted sanctions package against North Korea that could cost it 1 billion US dollar a year in an effort to halt its nuclear weapons and missile programmes. This was in response to the North Korea’s conducting two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month.
