US and S Korean presidents affirm Pyongyang poses ‘grave’ direct threat in phone

6 hours ago by: Katrina Manson and Barney Jopson in Washington and Yuan Yang in Beijing

China’s foreign minister warned his North Korean counterpart that the situation on the Korean Peninsula was close to “crisis point”, a day after the UN unanimously voted for its strongest economic sanctions yet against Pyongyang.

Hours later, the South Korean president requested a phone call with US President Donald Trump on Sunday night, in which the White House said both leaders affirmed that North Korea posed “a grave and growing direct threat to the United States, South Korea, and Japan”.

The White House said Mr Trump and Mr Moon welcomed the new UN resolution and “committed to fully implement all relevant resolutions and to urge the international community to do so as well”.

The UN vote, which gained approval from both China and Russia and aimed at depriving North Korea of $1bn in revenues, marked a victory for a US-led effort to form an international coalition to halt the country’s nuclear programme.

At a meeting on Sunday in the Philippine capital Manila, China’s Wang Yi told Ri Yong-ho of North Korea that the measures were “necessary, but not the end-goal”, and that the aim was to bring the nuclear aspirant back to the table for talks.

He emphasised that the situation was “approaching a crisis point, and at the same time had become a turning point for returning to negotiations”, according to an account from China’s foreign affairs ministry.

The UN resolution introduces an export ban on key products in retaliation for two intercontinental ballistic missile tests last month — the first in North Korea’s history — although it stopped short of a ban on oil imports and air travel.

After the talks with Mr Wang in Manila, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said President Vladimir Putin and China’s leader Xi Jinping would “pay special attention to the North Korea issue” at their next meeting in September.

In a meeting with Rex Tillerson, US secretary of state, Mr Lavrov called any further escalation of tensions “inadmissible”, but said US military preparations around the Korean Peninsula were contributing to such escalation.

Mr Lavrov and Mr Tillerson were meeting for the first time since Washington broadened anti-Russian sanctions and enshrined them in law. Mr Lavrov told his US counterpart that the US sanctions law dealt “a powerful blow to the prospects for bilateral co-operation,” but Russia was “ready to normalise dialogue if Washington steps back from its confrontational line”. N Korea’s long-range missile

On North Korea sanctions, Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, said the UN vote had taken the penalties on Kim Jong Un’s regime “to a whole new level” and “put the North Korean dictator on notice”.

The sanctions impose a ban on coal — North Korea’s leading export, worth an estimated $400m a year — as well as seafood products, worth an additional $300m, plus iron ore, lead and lead ore, amounting to a shortfall of a third of annual revenues.

The US and its allies have sought for months to squeeze the Kim regime in an effort to bring it to the negotiating table and convince it to give up its rapidly developing nuclear programme. Mr Tillerson at the UN in April called for “painful sanctions” on North Korea.President Trump also made mention of China and Russia in a statement released over the weekend, saying he “appreciates” their co-operation in securing the resolution. He said he would work with allies and partners to increase diplomatic and economic pressure on the country.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, said his country supported the resolution because North Korea’s ballistic and nuclear programme was “inadmissible”, although he cautioned that sanctions alone were inadequate and called for talks.

Matthew Rycroft, UK ambassador to the UN, said the sanctions “ratchet up pressure” on North Korea. “Now they have a choice,” he said.

North Korea has topped Mr Trump’s foreign policy agenda since the beginning of his presidency. The ICBM tests have worried experts who fear they could put US territory in range of the nuclear weapons that Pyongyang is developing.

The Trump administration had been hoping to increase pressure on Pyongyang and cut off its economic umbilical cord. But China has often sought to steer a softer approach, advocating direct talks instead, although it has repeatedly said sanctions were appropriate in the case of nuclear or ICBM tests. More than 90 per cent of North Korean trade takes place with China.

The UN resolution, which also prohibits countries from increasing numbers of North Korean “guest” labourers and caps joint investments in the country, calls for the resumption of six-party talks. Mr Tillerson recently expressed a desire to open negotiations with North Korea in remarks likely to reassure China.

Although the US has said it would require North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions as a precondition for talks, South Korea has recently floated the idea of immediate face-to-face talks.