'UN sanctions aim to bring North Korea to negotiation'

The toughest UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea were intended to pressure Pyongyang to come back to the denuclearisation talks, US Department of State spokesman Mark Toner said.

"The goal of this UN Security Council resolution that was passed last week is to apply increasing pressure on the elite within North Korea, to encourage them to come back to denuclearisation talks, via the Six-Party Talks," Toner said on Monday.

The US will continue the pressurize North Korea "with the aspiration trying to get them back to talk about denuclearisation," Xinhua quoted Toner as saying.

He noted that not only the US, but the entire international community is concerned about North Korea's recent activity, which shows "no willingness to come back to table to talk the denuclearisation."

The UN Security Council last week unanimously adopted a resolution to impose tougher sanctions on North Korea to curb the country's nuclear and missile programmes. Council members also called for an early resumption of the Six-Party Talks.

The Six-Party Talks, a multilateral mechanism, is believed as a practical way to realise denuclearisation in the Korean peninsula.

It was launched in 2003 but were stalled in December 2008. Pyongyang quit the talks in April 2009.

The six countries in the talk are North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, the US and Russia.

China has also recently proposed a "parallel-track approach" to address the issue to denuclearise the Korean peninsula and replace the armistice with a peace agreement at the same time.