U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley warned Wednesday that North Korea’s latest intercontinental ballistic missile launch “brings the world closer to war, not further from it.”
“We have never sought war with North Korea and still today we do not seek it,” Haley told an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. But she warned that if there is war, it will be because of continued acts of aggression like the missile launch.
“And if war comes, make no mistake, the North Korean regime will be utterly destroyed,” she added.
She also called on U.N. member states to cut ties with Pyongyang. “All countries should sever diplomatic relations with North Korea and limit military, scientific, technical or commercial cooperation,” she said.
Haley said President Donald Trump told his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in a phone call earlier in the day that the time has come for Beijing to cut off all oil exports to North Korea.
“In 2003, China actually stopped the oil to North Korea; soon after, North Korea came to the [negotiating] table,” Haley said.
In September, the U.N. Security Council imposed tough economic sanctions aimed at cutting off financial and fuel lifelines to North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. Among the measures was a one-third cut of North Korea’s oil imports, as well as drastic reductions to the amount of gas, diesel and heavy fuel oil it could import.
New U.S. sanctions expected
In a tweet earlier Wednesday, President Trump pledged to impose new unilateral sanctions against the rogue Asian nation.
“We want to do everything we can to put maximum pressure on North Korea,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in response to a question from VOA about whether the administration believes the new sanctions will be effective.
“We’re going to continue doing that in every way possible — both diplomatically, economically and working with our partners and allies and ask them to step up and do more in this process, as well,” she said.
Later Wednesday, while speaking about tax reform in the Midwestern state of Missouri, Trump took another dig at North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, calling him “Little Rocket Man” and describing him as a “sick puppy.”
U.S. lawmakers react
The ranking Democratic member on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, noting that North Korea will soon have the capability of delivering a nuclear weapon to American shores said “it’s well past time” for the administration to use whatever diplomatic strategy it has.
“And if they do not, they need to develop one fast, as the military options are nothing short of disastrous, said the lawmaker Wednesday.
That sentiment was echoed by the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
“Yesterday, the bluster continued as the president uttered his third ‘redline’ to address the North Korea nuclear challenge, but so far has failed to put in place the people or strategy that could do just that,” Congressman Eliot Engel said.
Rising threat
The missile launched early Wednesday morning north of Pyongyang reached an altitude of 4,500 kilometers – more than 10 times higher than the orbit of the International Space Station – before splashing into Japan’s exclusive economic zone east of the Korean peninsula about 1,000 kilometers from its launch site.
It was Pyongyang’s third ICMB test this year and its 20th ballistic missile launch of 2017.
The test represents a key accomplishment for Pyongyang’s missile program, and shows it can send rockets higher and further than ever before, according to U.S. officials and analysts.
“It went higher frankly than any previous shot they have taken,” U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday. “It’s a research-and-development effort on their part to continue building ballistic missiles that can threaten everywhere in the world basically.”
Each missile launch or atomic weapons test by Pyongyang highlights the risks of a very dangerous nuclear flashpoint, said Robert Manning, a senior fellow on international security at the Atlantic Council.
“The North Korean nuclear problem is part of a larger Korea question, the last vestige of the Cold War,” Manning said. “It holds the potential to reshape geopolitics in East Asia toward either a more cooperative future or a confrontational one. The risks of nuclear war and proliferation, chaos in North Korea, and how the eventual reunification of the Korean Peninsula occurs are likely to have a transformative impact on U.S.-Chinese relations, U.S. alliances with the Republic of Korea and Japan, and the strategic equation in the region and beyond.”
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