The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on Friday unanimously passed a bill that calls for strengthening sanctions on North Korea as well as countries and businesses helping the communist regime in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

   Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the committee, and Rep. Eliot Engel, the committee's ranking member, introduced the legislation (H.R. 757) earlier this month.

A similar bill in the House last year but was later scrapped after the Senate did not act on it before the previous Congress session ended.

   The bill, which received a boost from the North's alleged cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, targets the North's access to the "hard currency and other goods that bolster the Kim Jong-un regime in power," the committee said in a statement.

   The legislation also calls for the U.S. government to use all available tools to impose sanctions not only on the North but also on countries and companies that assist the North "in bolstering its nuclear weapons program." It also has an important human rights focus, as a United Nations report found that the regime's abuses have no "parallel in the contemporary world," the statement said.

   "Last November, with its cyber-attack on Sony Pictures, North Korea once again reminded the world that behind its belligerent rhetoric is a country that poses a very real and serious threat to our security. The legislation we passed today is a direct response to North Korea's continued aggression," Royce said.

   "At a time when North Korea is closer than ever to miniaturizing a nuclear warhead, this legislation applies tough sanctions against the regime and its enablers. The legislation also shines a light on the gross human rights abuses Kim Jong-un and his top officials inflict on North Koreans," he said.

   Specifically, the bill denies sanctioned North Koreans and those facilitating their weapons programs access to the U.S.

financial system; targets banks that facilitate North Korean proliferation, smuggling, money laundering, and human rights abuses and targets individuals who facilitated the cyber-attacks against the U.S.

   It also authorizes the U.S. president to sanction banks and foreign governments that facilitate the violation of the financial restrictions of U.N. Security Council Resolution 2094, adopted in the wake of the North's last nuclear test in 2013, and requires enhanced inspection requirements of North Korean shipments arriving from ports and airports. (Yonhap)