The South Korean government welcomed the United Nations' fresh sanctions against North Korea on Sunday, renewing its call on the communist state to stop all provocations.

"The government welcomes the unanimous adoption of Resolution 2371 by the UN Security Council in response to North Korea's ballistic missile provocations on July 4 and 28," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a released statement.

The statement came only hours after the UNSC adopted the new sanctions resolution.

"Through the resolution, the UNSC strongly condemned North Korean ballistic missiles and imposed more strengthened sanctions, proclaiming once again the international community's determination that it will never condone North Korea's nuclear and missile development," it said.

The latest UN sanctions follows the North's test-firing of what it claims to have been intercontinental ballistic missiles with capabilities to hit the US mainland.


Seoul urged Pyongyang to take the international warning seriously and stop its reckless provocations, while also calling on the reclusive North to "come out to the path of dialogue for denuclearization and peace."

All major political parties here welcomed the new UN resolution, but the conservatives insisted the incumbent government may be unwilling to punish the North.

"The Moon Jae-in administration must work in line with the UN resolution on North Korea. South Korea playing its own tune and continuing to go down its own path is not desirable," Lee Jong-cheol, a spokesman of the splinter Bareun Party, said in a released statement.

The liberal People's Party said the new sanctions must be a "catalyst" for change in the impoverished North.

"The new UN sanctions against North Korea are meaningful in that they swiftly showed the international community's consistent opposition to the North's armed provocations," party spokesperson Kim Yoo-jung said.

The foreign ministry said the government will "faithfully implement the latest resolution in close coordination with the international community, as well as the existing sanctions resolutions on North Korea."

It also stressed that the government "will continue its efforts to realize fundamental denuclearization of North Korea and build permanent peace on the Korean Peninsula."

The UNSC sanctions aim to slash North Korea's annual export revenue of $3 billion by a third, and ban all its exports of coal, iron, iron ore, lead, lead ore and seafood.

The US-drafted resolution also calls for capping the number of North Korean workers overseas and restricts all new joint ventures with North Korea and additional investment in current ventures.

Moreover, it subjects nine North Korean individuals and four entities to asset freezes and travel bans. The move is expected to deprive the communist regime of key sources of export revenue.

"The resolution imposed a blanket ban on the exports of coal, iron and iron ore, which had been given exceptions in previous resolutions and newly adopted export bans on lead, lead ore, as well as limits on the employment of overseas North Korean workers," the foreign ministry here said.

"We expect it would have an effect of significantly cutting North Korea's foreign currency income," the ministry also said, putting the estimated amount of the cut at $1 billion, most of them from coal and seafood exports.
"It would thus help shutter the foreign currency revenue channels for North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs while having an effect of delivering a clear message to the North Korean regime on the international community's no tolerance of its nuclear program," according to the ministry.
The ministry also hailed the resolution for taking "effective" measures aimed at blocking the North Korean procurement network for weapons of mass destruction.

The UNSC resolution was well-received in Japan, where Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said in his statement that the resolution is a clear international message that a higher level of pressure is needed to deal with North Korea's "realistic" threats.

Close global cooperation involving South Korea, the US, and China and Russia should be secured to guarantee the effectiveness of the resolution, Abe said, adding that the Japanese government will work toward resolving the North Korean issues under the principle of talks and pressure.

He also called on North Korea to abide by UNSC resolutions, and refrain from further nuclear and ballistic missile tests, saying that Japan strongly demands the North take specific action for the denuclearization of the peninsula. (Yonhap)