UN orders new sanctions against North

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The UN Security Council on Thursday imposed new sanctions against North Korea amid escalating tensions as the North threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States.

The council unanimously passed a resolution, agreed by the United States and China, which added new names to the UN sanctions blacklist and tightened restrictions on the North’s financial dealings, notably its “bulk cash” transfers.

North Korea said ahead of the meeting that a new war was “unavoidable” because of South Korean-US military exercises.

The North’s military “will exercise the right to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors”, said the foreign ministry.

North Korea now faces one of the toughest UN sanctions regimes ever imposed after three nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and the latest on February 12.

And resolution 2094 agreed by the 15-member Security Council threatened “further significant measures” if the North stages a new nuclear test or rocket launch.

The resolution expresses “gravest concern” over the nuclear test and adds three new individuals, a government science academy and trading company to the UN blacklist for a travel ban and assets freeze.

Two of the individuals are Yon Chong-Nam and Ko Chol Chae, the head and deputy chief of Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID). The resolution described KOMID as North Korea’s “primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons”.