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UK pressing for new sanctions against North Korea

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, June 2, IRNA – The British government is pressing for further sanctions to be imposed after the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) carried out nuclear tests last month, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has revealed.

“We strongly condemn the nuclear test,” Miliband said. “This action was wrong, misguided, dangerous, and a clear breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1718 (2006),” he said in a parliamentary statement published Tuesday.

“The UK is now working with Security Council partners to develop a tough new resolution imposing sanctions, which will increase the pressure on DPRK following previous resolutions,” he told MPs.

The statement was issued following a week’s break in the British parliament, when North Korea was reported to have successfully tested a nuclear weapon as powerful as the US atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima at the end of World War Two.

Miliband warned that the test would “undermine prospects for peace on the Korean peninsula and do nothing for North Korea’s security.” The DPRK, he warned, will “find itself even more isolated and scorned by the international community.”

“The nuclear test also highlights the critical importance of revitalising the non-proliferation treaty and securing entry into force of the comprehensive test ban treaty. The international community needs to demonstrate that it does not tolerate proliferation of this sort,” he said.

“If North Korea is to take its rightful place within the international community, it needs to respect international norms, abide by its international obligations as set out in successive UN Security Council Resolutions and the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, end its aggressive policies towards its region and the rest of the world, and engage constructively with international partners, including through the six-party talks process,” Miliband said.

He said that the six-party talks process, which include the United States, China, Japan, Russia and, South Korea as well as North Korea, “offers a forum for discussion of legitimate issues between the countries involved.”