The United Nations (UN) on Monday gained the support of China and Russia in a unanimous vote to impose new sanctions on North Korea after its sixth and largest nuclear test.
The council voted 15-0 to back the US-drafted sanctions which involves the banning of exports of coal, lead and seafood.
Pyongyang has claimed to have developed a hydrogen bomb and has continuously threatened to strike the US.
North Korea is already under UN sanctions to force the leadership to curtail its weapons programmes.
The resolution is designed to accomplish six major goals: cap North Korea’s oil imports, ban textile exports, end additional overseas laborer contracts, suppress smuggling efforts, stop joint ventures with other nations and sanction designated North Korean government entities, according to a US official familiar with negotiations.
North Korea has long maintained it wants nuclear weapons and long-range missiles to deter the United States from attempting to overthrow the regime of Kim Jong Un.
Pyongyang looks at states such as Iraq — where Saddam Hussein was overthrown by the United States, and Libya — its late leader, Moammar Gadhafi, gave up his nuclear ambitions for sanctions relief and aid, only to be toppled and killed after the United States intervened in his country’s civil unrest — and believes that only being able to threaten the US mainland with a retaliatory nuclear strike can stop American military intervention.
Many experts say they believe North Korea would not use the weapons first. Kim values his regime’s survival above all else and knows the use of a nuclear weapon would start a war he could not win, analysts say.
