{"id":44953,"date":"2018-01-17T13:20:11","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T08:20:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=44953"},"modified":"2018-01-17T13:20:11","modified_gmt":"2018-01-17T08:20:11","slug":"twenty-nations-agree-to-consider-tougher-sanctions-against-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=44953","title":{"rendered":"Twenty nations agree to consider tougher sanctions against North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>VANCOUVER Jan 17 (TNS):<\/strong> Twenty nations agreed to consider tougher sanctions to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Pyongyang it could trigger a military response if it did not choose negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>A U.S.-hosted meeting of countries that backed South Korea during the 1950-53 Korea War also vowed to support renewed dialogue between the two Koreas \u201cin hopes that it leads to sustained easing of tensions\u201d and agreed that a diplomatic solution to the crisis was both essential and possible.<\/p>\n<p>North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has refused to give up development of nuclear missiles capable of hitting the United States in spite of increasingly severe U.N. sanctions, raising fears of a new war on the Korean peninsula.<\/p>\n<p>The United States and Canada co-hosted the day-long meeting in Vancouver to discuss ways to increase pressure on Kim.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials have reported a debate within the Trump administration over whether to give more active consideration to military options, such as a pre-emptive strike on a North Korean nuclear or missile site.<\/p>\n<p>Tillerson brushed off a question about such a \u201cbloody nose\u201d strike, telling a closing news conference: \u201cI\u2019m a not going to comment on issues that have yet to be decided among the National Security Council or the president.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>However, he said the threat posed by North Korea was growing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe all need to be very sober and clear-eyed about the current situation &#8230; We have to recognize that the threat is growing and if North Korea does not chose the pathway of engagement, discussion, negotiation, then they themselves will trigger an option,\u201d Tillerson said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur approach is, in terms of having North Korea chose the correct step, is to present them with what is the best option \u2013 talks are the best option; that when they look at the military situation, that\u2019s not a good outcome for them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is time to talk, but they have to take the step to say they want to talk.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Vancouver meeting pledged to ensure that U.N. sanctions already in place were fully implemented and the participants said in a joint statement they agreed \u201cto consider and take steps to impose unilateral sanctions and further diplomatic actions that go beyond those required by U.N. Security Council resolutions.\u201d They gave no details.<\/p>\n<p>Tillerson said all countries needed to work together to improve interdiction of ships attempting to skirt sanctions and said there must be \u201cnew consequences\u201d for North Korea \u201cwhenever new aggression occurs.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said the meeting had agreed that China and Russia, which did not attend the Vancouver talks, must fully implement U.N. sanctions.<\/p>\n<p>U.S. officials say discussion of a military strike option has lost some momentum since North and South Korea held formal talks for the first time in two years this month and Pyongyang said it would send athletes to the Winter Olympics that South Korea will host next month. Reuters<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VANCOUVER Jan 17 (TNS): Twenty nations agreed to consider tougher sanctions to press North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned Pyongyang it could trigger a military response if it did not choose negotiations. A U.S.-hosted meeting of countries that backed South Korea during the 1950-53 Korea [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,1327],"tags":[932,1328],"class_list":["post-44953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-vancouver","tag-international","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44955,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44953\/revisions\/44955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}