Sanctions alone won't solve North Korea problem - Russian envoy

North Korea's leader is 'begging for war', the US ambassador to the United Nations told an emergency meeting of the Security Council yesterday after Kim Jong Un's latest nuclear test.

US President Donald Trump spoke with his South Korean counterpart by phone. Picture: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

Nikki Haley said the US would look at countries doing business with Pyongyang and planned to circulate a resolution this week with the goal of getting it approved by next Monday.

The ambassador said: “Enough is enough. War is never something the United States wants. We don’t want it now. But our country’s patience is not unlimited.

“The United States will look at every country that does business with North Korea as a country that is giving aid to their reckless and dangerous nuclear intentions.”

US president Donald Trump spoke by phone with his South Korean counterpart Moon Jae-in and agreed that North Korea’s hydrogen bomb test on Sunday was an “unprecedented” provocation.

South Korea is set to scrap a warhead weight limit on its own missiles and yesterday it carried out live-fire exercises, simulating an attack on Mr Kim’s nuclear test site.

The emergency UN session came six days after the Security Council strongly condemned what it called Pyongyang’s “outrageous” launch of a ballistic missile over Japan.

Less than a month ago, the council imposed its stiffest sanctions yet on the reclusive nation.

But the US resolution faces an uncertain future.

Russia and China have proposed a two-pronged approach: North Korea would suspend its nuclear and ­missile development, and the US and South Korea would suspend their joint military exercises.

Washington and Seoul say the manoeuvres are defensive, but Pyongyang views them as a rehearsal for invasion.

North Korea recently requested a Security Council meeting about the war games.

The US maintains there is no comparison between its openly conducted, internationally monitored military drills and North Korea’s weapons programmes, which the international community has banned.

Russian ambassador Vassily Nebenzia said before the UN meeting that sanctions alone would not solve the problem and there had to be negotiations too.

He added: “Resolutions aimed solely at sanctioning North Korea have not worked well before.”

China’s attention has switched to this week’s summit of “Brics” nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – which it is hosting in the south-eastern city of Xiamen.

However, posts on the popular microblogging network Sina Weibo and the mobile messenger service WeChat which highlighted the fact that North Korea’s bomb test coincided with the summit have been censored.

Diplomats from France, Britain and Italy at the UN meeting, speaking one after the ­other, repeated demands for Mr Kim’s regime to halt its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes and urged further sanctions on North Korea.

Matthew Rycroft, the UK ambassador to the UN, described the matter as “disturbing and unprecedented”, but said it was “clear” that sanctions applied by the Security Council on North Korea were “having an effect”.

He called on the Security Council to condemn the latest test and said: “We continue to wish for a peaceful way forward: dialogue will always be our end goal but returning to dialogue without a serious sign of intent from Pyongyang would be a set-up to failure.

“North Korea must change course to allow a return to dialogue. Were they to do so the opportunity exists to end this crisis.

“Until that moment we must stay the course on sanctions and continue, as the Secretary-General has called for, to present a united front.”

He repeated his calls for a new Security Council resolution and said in light of the latest test: “We must increase the pace of implementation of existing sanctions and work rapidly towards the adoption of a new and effective resolution.”

French ambassador Francois Delattre said France was urging the adoption of new UN sanctions, swift implementation of existing ones and new, separate sanctions by the European Union.

“Pyongyang poses a clear threat to international peace and security and is increasingly and seriously challenging the global non-proliferation regime,” said Sebastiano Cardi, the UN ambassador from Italy, which heads the North Korea sanctions compliance committee.

He noted that North Korea is the only country to have tested a nuclear device in the 21st century.

The North claimed its sixth nuclear test blast since 2006 was a “perfect success”.

Japanese ambassador Koro Bessho said before the UN meeting: “We cannot waste any more time.

“And in order to do that, we need North Korea to feel the pressure, but if they go down this road there will be consequences.”