US pushes UN to maintain sanctions pressure on NKorea

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today urged UN member-states to keep tough economic sanctions fully in place on North Korea and maintain pressure on Kim Jong Un to dismantle Pyongyang's nuclear program.

"We need to see Chairman Kim do what he promised the world he would do," Pompeo told reporters after meeting with the Security Council.

The United States believes that North Korea can shed its "pariah" status from its nuclear and missile programs, but "it will take full enforcement of sanctions for us to get there," he said.

Pompeo traveled to New York for the one-hour meeting with the council to provide a first briefing to the top UN body on North Korea since Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un's summit. China and Russia have argued that North Korea should be rewarded with the prospect of eased sanctions for opening up dialogue with the United States and halting missile tests.

But US Ambassador Nikki Haley made clear that the best way to support US diplomacy on North Korea was "to not loosen the sanctions." "We can't do one thing until we see North Korea respond to their promise to denuclearize," Haley said.

Pompeo's talks in New York came a day after Russia and China put a six-month hold on a US request to cut off deliveries of refined oil to North Korea. Last week, the United States asked a UN sanctions committee to order a halt to shipments of oil products to North Korea after accusing Pyongyang of exceeding a cap on fuel deliveries with illegal imports.

But Russia and China said they needed more time to consider the US request and to review Washington's allegations of sanctions-busting by North Korea.

Pompeo called for an end to the illegal ship-to-ship transfers of fuel while Haley rejected the Chinese and Russian appeal for more time, saying the United States had photographs as proof of the violations.

Trump opened up prospects for an end to the standoff with North Korea when he met in Singapore on June 12 with Kim, who agreed to work toward denuclearization of the peninsula.

The agreement however was short on details -- North Korea has long trumpeted a denuclearization goal, but one that it sees as a lengthy process of undefined multilateral disarmament, rather than a unilateral dismantlement of its nuclear arsenal.