Trump imposing new sanctions on North Korea

UNITED States President, President Donald Trump said Thursday he is imposing new sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear threat as he prepared for meetings with the leaders of South Korea and Japan to plot strategy on their confrontation with Pyongyang.

According to VOA, Trump is meeting separately with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and together with both of them at a working lunch in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly to discuss their so-far futile attempts to rein in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un from carrying out repeated nuclear weapons and ballistic missile tests.

Trump said he would impose the new sanctions, but it was not immediately clear how they would differ from the latest round of penalties imposed by the United Nations Security Council targeting North Korean exports and energy supplies.

Moon told world leaders at Thursday’s UN General Assembly session, “We do not desire the collapse of North Korea. We will not seek reunification by absorption or artificial means.”

He added, “If North Korea makes a decisions even now to stand on the right side of history, we are ready to assist North Korea together with the international community. North Korea should acknowledge all these immutable facts as soon as possible.”

Moon called on Pyongyang to immediately cease “making reckless choices” and choose the path of dialogue.

“I urge North Korea to abandon its hostile policies against other countries and give up its nuclear weapons program in a verifiable and irreversible way,” the South Korean leader said.

He called on the international community to “strongly and sternly” respond until North Korea ends its nuclear weapons development.

Trump is sending the top US diplomat, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, to a Security Council session Thursday to press for enforcement of the sanctions against Pyongyang aimed at limiting its funds for weapons development.

The UN has adopted a series of sanctions against North Korea, but so far they have not kept Kim from continuing the weapons tests, including missile launches through the skies over Japan.

Trump, in a speech Tuesday to world leaders at the UN, mocked Kim as “rocket man,” and said the US would “totally destroy North Korea” if it attacks the United States or its allies.