North Korea is feeling the heat.
North Korea faces harsh new U.N. sanctions that’s made to dry the country out of money for its nuclear weapons program plans. The sanctions came after a unanimous Security Council vote on Wednesday on a resolution drafted by the United States and Pyongyang's ally China.
The resolution, which dramatically expands existing sanctions, follows North Korea's latest nuclear test on Jan. 6 and a Feb. 7 rocket launch that Washington and its allies said used banned ballistic missile technology. Pyongyang said it was a peaceful satellite launch.
U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power said the sanctions go further than any U.N. sanctions regime in two decades and aim to cut off funds for North Korea's nuclear and other banned weapons programs.
Two council diplomats said on condition of anonymity that the new resolution makes the North Korean sanctions regime even tougher than the Iran sanctions regime that they say led to a decision on Tehran's part to agree to an historic nuclear deal last year that led to most restrictions being lifted in January.
All cargo going to and from North Korea must now be inspected and North Korean trade representatives in Syria, Iran and Vietnam are among 16 individuals added to a U.N. blacklist, along with 12 North Korean entities.
Previously states only had to inspect such shipments if they had reasonable grounds to believe they contained illicit goods. "Virtually all of the DPRK's (North Korea) resources are channeled into its reckless and relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction," Power told the council after the vote, adding that the cargo inspection provisions are "hugely significant."
She said the point of the resolution was to target the country's leadership, not its impoverished people, adding that North Korea is "a master of evasion" and would continue to try to evade the sanctions although the new measures would make that harder.
There was no immediate reaction from the North Korean U.N. mission. The official North Korean news agency KCNA said on Monday the proposed sanctions were "a wanton infringement on (North Korea's) sovereignty and grave challenge to it."
