Donald Trump asks Xi Jinping to cut off North Korea’s oil supply to stop nuclear programme
Halting Pyongyang-bound oil shipments would be ‘a pivotal step in world’s effort to stop this international pariah’, US’s UN ambassador Nikki Haley said
US President Donald Trump asked President Xi Jinping to halt all oil shipments to North Korea to stop its neighbour’s nuclear weapons programme following Pyongyang’s test launch of a ballistic missile experts say could reach the US mainland.
“President Trump called Chinese President Xi [Jinping] this morning and told him that we’ve come to the point where China must cut off the oil from North Korea. That would be a pivotal step in the world’s effort to stop this international pariah,” Washington’s United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley said.
“We know the main driver of [North Korea’s] nuclear production is oil,” Haley said on Wednesday at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.
The Security Council meeting pitted the US, Japan and its other allies against China and Russia, which accused the US of intensifying North Korea’s determination to develop nuclear weapons capability. Haley also accused China of not enforcing existing sanctions against North Korea.
Airline pilots saw flash believed to be from North Korean missile over Japan
China’s Deputy UN Ambassador Wu Haitao blamed the US for ignoring a joint Sino-Russian “suspension-for-suspension” proposal, wherein the US would halt joint military exercises with South Korea in exchange for a halt in North Korea’s missile testing. Russia cited US Air Force bomber flights near North Korean territory as provocations that stiffened Pyongyang’s resolve in producing nuclear weapons.