New York – The United States is “done talking about North Korea” and China is aware they must act, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Sunday after North Korea fired its second long-range missile this month and amid a push by Washington to impose stronger U.N. sanctions on Pyongyang.
Subscribe to our Daily Roundup Email
“Done talking about North Korea. China is aware they must act. Japan and South Korea must increase pressure. Not only a U.S. problem. It will require an international solution,” Haley posted on Twitter.
She then posted a link to photos of the United States, Japan and South Korea conducting bomber jet drills over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday. The United States flew two supersonic B-1B bombers as a show of force after Pyongyang fired an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday.
The United States has been in talks with North Korean ally China on a draft U.N. Security Council resolution to impose stronger sanctions on North Korea. Haley gave China a draft text after North Korea’s July 4 ICBM test.
Haley said last Tuesday that the United States had been making progress with China.
Some diplomats had expected the United States, Japan and South Korea to ask for the 15-member U.N. Security Council to meet on Monday over the test, but no such request has yet been made.
Such a meeting would set the stage for a likely showdown between the United States and Russia over whether Friday’s launch was a long-range rocket test.
Diplomats say China and Russia only view a long-range missile test or nuclear weapon test as a trigger for further possible U.N. Security Council sanctions.
The Pentagon and South Korean military believe Friday’s test was an ICBM. However, a Russian Defence Ministry official said Moscow’s data indicated it was only a medium-range missile.
The United States and Russia have waged rival campaigns at the U.N. Security Council over the type of ballistic missile fired by North Korea on July 4. Western powers said it was an ICBM, while Russia said it was medium-range.
North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and two long-range missile launches.
Haley has said some options to strengthen U.N. sanctions were to restrict the flow of oil to North Korea’s military and weapons programmes, increasing air and maritime restrictions and imposing sanctions on senior officials.
Traditionally, the United States and China have negotiated sanctions on North Korea before formally involving other Security Council members.
Hilarious! WE are done talking, so CHINA is supposed to act. That’s like what Teddy Roosevelt said, right? Speak softly, and let China carry the big stick.
I don’t understand. Jong Un is not in a tunnel like another rat we know. He is on the ground and above him, blue sky. They couldn’t take him out?
Would have saved a lot of lives.
Words like these precede wars.
As for #2 , of course we can kill Kim. That is hardly the issue. The problem is the PDRK knows it will lose a war. As soon as out first bomb falls they will spasm with everything they got. They are in a use-it-or-lose-it situation after all.
What does a spasm mean? Several thousand artillery shells falling on Seoul for for maybe two days until we can smite their tubes. A dozen commando attacks in South Korea, maybe killing a hundred or so each. More command attacks in China, Japan and the United States. The release of several very nasty computer attacks. The possible release of chemical weapons. Of course we would have to play very hard to keep them from launching a nuke, even popping a nuke on their own territory just to cause trouble. A hundred thousand political prisoners would be slaughtered.
So if we are lucky we might get away with fewer than a million people dead. Then of course we will have broken Northeast Asia as badly as George Bush (the lesser) broke the Middle East.
But Kim would be dead, so we would have that going for us.
Does the USA have really have enough power over South Korea to have them agree to start a war? The USA talks as if its their decision, not South Korea’s.
The RoK is opposed to a war. The US could start one, but the newly-unified Korea would most likely be a Chinese ally, not an American one. They would never forgive us.