US sanctions two North Koreans over missile program
The United States has sanctioned two senior North Korean officials over the country's ballistic missile program.
The Department of the Treasury on Tuesday named the officials as Kim Jong Sik and Ri Pyong Chol, adding Kim was reportedly a key figure in North Korea's efforts to switch its missile program from liquid to solid fuel, while Ri was reported to be a key official involved in the country's intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development.
"Treasury is targeting leaders of North Korea's ballistic missile programs, as part of our maximum pressure campaign to isolate (North Korea) and achieve a fully denuclearized Korean Peninsula," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.
“These actions follow Friday’s United Nations Security Council Resolution, which imposed strong new sanctions on North Korea further shutting down its ability to raise illicit funds,” Mnuchin added.
The UN Security Council imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday over Pyongyang’s missile and nuclear weapons development program.
North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un last week censured US President Donald Trump for his expansionist policy, which, Trump said, seeks “total subordination of the world.”
"This has fully revealed that 'America first policy', which the gang of Trump is crying out loudly about, is nothing but the proclamation of aggression aimed at holding sway over the world according to its taste and at its own free will," Kim said at the 5th Conference of Cell Chairpersons of the Workers' Party of Korea (WPK) on Thursday.
Washington’s decades-long military presence in and around the Korean Peninsula has forced Pyongyang to develop its ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent against Washington's aggression. However, Pyongyang’s internationally-condemned weapons programs have been faced with United Nations sanctions.
Pyongyang has repeatedly defended its weapons program as being defensive in nature and a deterrent against potential hostility by foreign powers.
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