The US-drafted resolution would also cap crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year. In November, North Korea called for a halt to what it called “brutal sanctions,” saying a previous round imposed after its sixth and most powerful nuclear test on Sept. 3 constituted genocide. North Korea regularly threatens to destroy South Korea, the United States and Japan, and says its weapons programmes are necessary to counter US aggression. "If such sanctions were enforced, they would thus impede and endanger North Korea's economic development." China, which supplies most of North Korea's oil, has backed successive rounds of UN sanctions but had resisted past U.S. calls to cut off supplies to its neighbour.

Source: Otago Daily Times December 22, 2017 19:41 UTC