North Korea labels new UN sanctions ‘an act of war’ adding the US and others will pay a heavy price
Earlier Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson backed the UN measures to cut limits on Pyongyang’s oil imports and clampdown on its shipping
NORTH Korea warned today that the new UN sanctions against it are "an act of war" adding the US and others that supported the strict measures will pay a heavy price.
The hardline comments from the rogue state came after US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said the new sanctions will strangle its energy supplies and tighten restrictions on smuggling.
The resolution slashes exports of gasoline, diesel and other refined oil products by a total of 89 per cent.
It also bans exports of industrial equipment, machinery, transportation vehicles and industrial metals to North Korea, and requires countries using the reclusive nation's labourers to send them back home within 24 months.
Additionally, the resolution prohibits countries from smuggling North Korean coal and other prohibited commodities by sea.
However, in a statement carried by the official KCNA news agency, North Korea’s foreign ministry said the US was terrified by its nuclear force and was getting “more and more frenzied in the moves to impose the harshest-ever sanctions and pressure on our country”.
The new resolution is tantamount to a complete economic blockade of North Korea, the ministry said.
“We define this ‘sanctions resolution’ rigged up by the US and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region, and categorically reject the ‘resolution’,” the ministry said.
"If the US wishes to live safely, it must abandon its hostile policy towards the DPRK and learn to co-exist with the country that has nuclear weapons and should wake up from its pipe dream of our country giving up nuclear weapons which we have developed and completed through all kinds of hardships."
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Earlier Boris Johnson said the new sanctions against North Korea are “vital steps” to prevent its aim of building a nuclear weapon to hit America.
The Foreign Secretary said: “These further measures adopted show Kim Jong-un that he has the choice of two paths.
“To either continue the current path of provocation and isolation or to put the well-being of his people first. We urge North Korea to change its course.”
US President Donald Trump said: “The World wants Peace, not Death!”