US asks UN to slap oil embargo on North Korea, freeze Kim Jong-Un's assets

The United States has asked the UN Security Council to slap an oil embargo on North Korea and freeze the assets of leader Kim Jong-Un, in response to Pyongyang's sixth and most powerful nuclear test.

A US-drafted resolution obtained by AFP also called for banning textile exports and ending payments made to North Korean labourers sent abroad, further depriving the regime of revenue to pursue its military programs.

The United States circulated the proposed resolution to the 14 other council members two days after Ambassador Nikki Haley called for the "strongest possible measures" to be imposed on North Korea.

Haley said on Monday that the United States was seeking a vote on the new sanctions on September 11.

The draft text takes aim directly at North Korea's leadership with a freeze on leader Kim's assets as well as those of the ruling Worker's Party of Korea and the government of North Korea.

Kim would be added to a UN sanctions blacklist that would subject him to a global travel ban, along with four other senior North Korean officials, according to the draft.
READ MORE

US will receive more 'gift packages,' warns North Korea after nuclear test

A top North Korean diplomat on Tuesday warned that his country is ready to send “more gift packages” to the United States as world powers struggled for a response to Pyongyang’s latest nuclear weapons test.

Han Tae Song, ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, confirmed that North Korea had successfully conducted its sixth and largest nuclear bomb test on Sunday.

”The recent self-defence measures by my country, DPRK, are a gift package addressed to none other than the US,” Han told a disarmament conference, using the acronym for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the country’s formal name.

“The US will receive more ‘gift packages’ ... as long as it relies on reckless provocations and futile attempts to put pressure on the DPRK,” he added without elaborating.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Monday accused North Korean leader Kim Jong Un of “begging for war” with a series of nuclear bomb and missile tests, and urged the 15-member Security Council to impose the “strongest possible” sanctions to deter him and shut down his trading partners.

READ MORE