US President Donald Trump said yesterday the UN Security Council must be prepared to impose new sanctions on North Korea, amid escalating tensions over its missile and nuclear programmes, saying people had acted as if “blindfolded” for decades on a big problem that finally needed to be solved.
“The status quo in North Korea is also unacceptable,” Trump told a meeting of UN
Security Council ambassadors at the White House, held at a time of mounting concern that North Korea may be preparing a sixth nuclear bomb test.
“The council must be prepared to impose additional and stronger sanctions on North Korean nuclear and ballistic missile programmes,” Trump said.
“This is a real threat to the world, whether we want to talk about it or not.
North Korea is a big world problem and it’s a problem that we have to finally solve,” he said. “People put blindfolds on for decades and now it’s time to solve the problem.”
Trump gave no indication as to when new sanctions should be imposed on North Korea.
US officials say his administration has been debating whether they should be held as response to any new North Korean missile or nuclear test, or imposed as soon as they can be agreed.
Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier called for all sides to exercise restraint in a telephone call about North Korea with Trump, as Japan conducted exercises with a US aircraft carrier strike group headed for Korean waters.
Trump, in his phone call with Xi, criticised North Korea’s “continued belligerence” and emphasised that its actions “are destabilising the Korean peninsula”, the White House said.
“The two leaders reaffirmed the urgency of the threat posed by North Korea’s missile and nuclear programmes, and committed to strengthen co-ordination in achieving the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula,” it said.
Xi told Trump China resolutely opposed any actions that ran counter to UN resolutions, China’s foreign ministry said.
China “hopes that all relevant sides exercise restraint, and avoid doing anything to worsen the tense situation”, the Chinese ministry said in a statement, paraphrasing Xi.
The call between the presidents was the latest manifestation of their close communication, which was good for their countries and the world, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said.
US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, speaking on NBC’s Today programme, said the United States and the international community were maintaining pressure on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un but were “not trying to pick a fight with him”. Asked whether a preemptive strike was under consideration, she said: “We are not going to do anything unless he gives us reason to do something.”
“If you see him attack a military base, if you see some sort of intercontinental ballistic missile, then obviously we’re going to do that. But right now, we’re saying ‘don’t test, don’t use nuclear missiles, don’t try and do any more actions’, and I think he’s understanding that. And China’s helping really put that pressure on him.”
Top Trump administration officials will hold a rare briefing tomorrow at the White House for the entire US Senate on the situation in North Korea, senior Senate aides said yesterday.
All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the aides said.
It is unusual for the entire 100-member Senate to go to such an event at the White House, and for those four top officials to be involved.
Nikki Haley called the detention of a US citizen by North Korea a display of muscle-flexing by the country’s “flailing” leader.
Kim Sang-Duk, or Tony Kim, was arrested Saturday at Pyongyang’s airport as he was about to leave the country after a teaching stint at a university founded by evangelical Christians.
Haley said the action was an attempt by Kim Jong-un’s regime to use the American as a bargaining chip amid heightened international tensions over its nuclear and missile programmes.
“What we’re dealing with is a leader who is flailing right now,” she said on CBS This Morning.
“And I think what he’s trying to do is show his citizens that he has muscle, whether it’s through his rhetoric or whether it’s through his actions,” she added.
“We always want to get every citizen out alive and healthy and make sure that they’re being treated properly,” she said. “And so those are the things we’ll start to work on.”
“I think you’re gonna continue to see pressure on North Korea,” Haley said.
“We have said, for quite a while now, that the United States is not looking for a fight,” she added.  “So North Korea doesn’t need to give us a reason to have one. And I think that they’re panicking right now.”

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