France wants UN to slap new sanctions on N. Korea in coming days

France urged the United Nations Security Council to adopt new sanctions on North Korea in the coming days as weeks of negotiations on the measures were making headway.
The United States began talks a month ago with China on a new UN draft resolution that would slap sanctions on North Korea after it launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile on July 4.
France "would like to see a resolution with robust and additional sanctions adopted in the very coming days," Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters today.
"The draft resolution is being negotiated as we speak and we are making progress."

British Ambassador Matthew Rycroft also said there was progress in the negotiations on the new measures aimed at pressuring North Korea to end its military programs.
The United States, Britain and France argue that North Korea's drive to develop an ICBM missile capability poses a global threat that must be swiftly addressed.

"The Security Council must respond rapidly and substantively with a new sanctions regime and I hope that that will come to pass in the near future," Rycroft said.
The United States has suggested that cutting North Korea's oil supplies, banning North Korean guest workers or imposing new air and maritime restrictions could be among the new UN sanctions.

Russia, however, has warned that any new measure must not have an impact on North Korea's humanitarian crisis.
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is expected to meet Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the weekend, on the sidelines of a ministerial meeting of the Southeast Asian ASEAN group in Manila.
While a draft resolution has yet to be formally presented to the Security Council, an agreement between the five permanent council members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- would pave the way to a quick vote on the sanctions.
The council has imposed six sets of UN sanctions on North Korea since it first tested a nuclear devise in 2006, but two resolutions adopted last year significantly toughened the sanctions regime.