The U.N. committee on sanctioning North Korea plans to discuss as early as next month whether to impose further penalties against North Korea for carrying out its third nuclear test in February, sources with direct knowledge of the committee said Wednesday.

During a meeting, the North Korean sanctions committee chaired by Luxembourg's Ambassador Sylvie Lucas put forth reports on its activities with regard to its latest sanctions and recommended blacklisting four more North Korean institutions and eight individuals, according to the sources.

The four candidate entities for the blacklist are the North's newly created Ministry of Atomic Energy Industry, the Munitions Industry Department of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers' Party, the State Space Development Bureau, and Hesong Trading Corp. 

The individuals include the atomic energy industry minister, four senior officials at the Munitions Industry Department, two officials of the space development bureau and an official of the trading company, the sources said.

The committee also aims to blacklist three non-Koreans -- Aleksandr Viktorovich Zykov from Kazakhstan, and two citizens of Ukraine, Iurii Lunov and Igor Karev-Popov -- for being involved in North Korea-related arms deals, they added.

Part of the recommendations echo those from the report drawn by its monitoring group last month, which called for sanctioning a total of 15 North Korean entities and individuals, along with the three from Eastern Europe.

"Member states are scheduled to begin discussions around July on whether to put more North Korean institutions and individuals on the sanctioning list," a source familiar with the issue said, adding it will be "up to the council whether it follows the recommendations."

"The committee encouraged not only 15 security council members but all U.N. member states to actively and voluntarily implement those measures against North Korea to make them more effective," another source said.

In March, the U.N. Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2094 to punish Pyongyang for its underground nuclear test on Feb 12, calling for the international community to toughen sanctions on the communist country and blacklisted 19 North-based firms and 12 figures.

Under the resolution, U.N. member states are required to put tighter restrictions on North Korea's financial activities and conduct thorough inspections of air and sea cargo headed to the country. 

In protest of the fresh international sanctions and the annual South Korea-U.S. military exercises, Pyongyang ratcheted up tensions with near-daily war threats and by withdrawing all of its workers from the inter-Korean industrial park in its border city of Kaesong. (Yonhap News)