The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved new watered-down sanctions on North Korea Monday.
The sanctions, proposed in response to Pyongyang’s September 3 nuclear test, curtail the country’s gas, petrol and oil imports, ban textile exports and prohibit countries from granting new work permits to North Koreans.
The resolution fell short of measures sought by the Trump administration and opposed by Russia and China to ban all oil imports, instead capping Pyongyang’s imports of crude oil at the level of the last 12 months and limiting the imports of refined petroleum products to 2 million barrels per year.
The U.S. also sought a travel ban and asset freeze on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and four key officials, and an asset freeze on the country’s national airline Air Koryo, the army, and five other military and party entities. Monday’s resolution added just Workers’ Party of Korea Central Military Commission member Pak Yong Sik, the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the party’s Organization and Guidance Department and its Propaganda and Agitation Department to the sanctions list.
Despite the watering down of the resolution, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said after the vote that “these are by far the strongest measures ever imposed on North Korea,” which will “only work if all nations implement them completely and aggressively,” according to the Associated Press.
“Today we are saying the world will never accept a nuclear armed North Korea,” Haley said. “We are done trying to prod the regime to do the right thing” and instead are taking steps to prevent it “from doing the wrong thing.”
She added: “The North Korean regime has not yet passed the point of no return. If it agrees to stop its nuclear program it can reclaim its future.”
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in a statement that the unanimous adoption of the sanctions showed the international community is “united against the illegal and reckless acts by the North Korean regime.” The new measures amounted to “the most stringent U.N. sanctions regime placed on any nation in the 21st century,” Johnson said.
“The North Korean regime bears full responsibility for the measures that the U.N. Security Council has enacted today,” he added. “It is their continued, illegal and aggressive actions that have brought us to this point.”