Seoul (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Pyongyang declares a ‘permanent end’ to nuclear talks, Kim Yong-nam, North Korea’s No 2 leader, said on the sidelines of the Non-Aligned Movement summit in a Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. In the meantime the United Nations Security Council has unanimously approved a new set of sanctions against North Korea.
“The [six-nation] talks ... came to a permanent end because the US and the majority of the obedient parties to the talks abandoned this principle,” said Kim Yong-nam, president of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly and North Korea’s nominal head of state.
He noted that his government had no choice but to take decisive measures to further bolster its “nuclear deterrent power.”
The extant diplomatic process began in 2003when South Korea, China, Japan, Russia and the United States engaged North Korea in talks aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear aspirations in return for aid. The last meeting was in December 2008. North Korea’s missile tests brought the negotiations to a halt.
In New York the United Nations Security Council is moving to increase pressure on Pyongyang. A blacklist has been prepared that includes five North Korean officials, four companies and a state agency.
The new list of sanctions includes a ban on the importation of materials used for nuclear weapons and missiles, such as certain types of graphite used in ballistic missile parts.
These sanctions take effect immediately and are to be carried out by all 192 of the United Nations member states; they include travel bans and a freeze on the financial assets against the officials, companies and state agency.
More significantly the Security Council decision met no opposition. In the past China and Russia tended to veto measures against Pyongyang.
