China cites concerns on United States missile defense system in South Korea

U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power told Kyodo News the same day that the document includes "unprecedented sanctions" and "goes well beyond anything we have done for North Korea, anything we did at all for Iran, which of course had a devastating effect on the Iranian economy".

The deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), an advanced USA missile defense system, in the Republic of Korea (ROK) may impair, or even threaten China's security interests, visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in Washington Thursday. (Stand-up) "The U.S.-China accord is deemed a breakthrough, as the two superpowers not only wield veto power on the council, but were the two countries that have been clashing most about the level of sanctions to be imposed on Pyongyang".

She said there still remain many pressure points to sanction Pyongyang. "It's breaking new ground in a whole host of ways", Ms Power said before heading into a closed-door meeting where the U.S. planned to circulate the draft to all 15 council members.

China and the United States have agreed upon the UN resolution on North Korea but will not accept Pyongyang as the nuclear weapons state.

The U.S. says a draft resolution is due to be submitted to the council Thursday. Furthermore, he said that the United States president is looking forward to welcoming the Chinese President Xi Jinping to a March 31-April 1 nuclear security summit in Washington and "working together towards its success".

"We are opposed to any nuclear testing and the launch testing of ballistic missile technology and we hope this resolution will help to prevent further occurrences of this nature", China's United Nations ambassador Liu Jieyi said after the meeting. The UN Security Council said it would adopt a new resolution toughening sanctions against Pyongyang. "I don't think it's too much to ask".

Chinese state media outlets have carried articles during recent years accusing Washington of stoking tensions with North Korea purely to create a pretext for expanding America's military footprint in the region. "It's not easy, but it certainly is an indication that the United States and China, when our interests are aligned, can cooperate quite effectively to advance the interests of citizens in both our countries", Earnest said.

"You can't determine which part of the mineral trade is related to people's livelihoods or not", said Choi Kyung-soo, head of the North Korea Resources Institute in Seoul, who made dozens of trips to North Korean state mines between 2001 and 2008 as part of an inter-Korean cooperation team.

The resolution, if adopted, would call for the blacklisting of more than two dozen individuals and entities, tighten restrictions on North Korean financing and banking, and add tough new measures on cargo inspections aimed at catching sanctions violations, diplomats said.

Following talks in Washington with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said the U.S. was not anxious to deploy a THAAD battery on the Korean Peninsula.

The measure also authorizes $50 million over five years to transmit radio broadcasts into North Korea and support humanitarian assistance programs.

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