Why in news?
Fresh sanctions are being imposed on North Korea.
What are the recent North Korean Aggressions?
- Pyongyang launched its first intercontinental ballistic missile in November 2017.
- Ever since, North Korea claims to have acquired the potential to deliver a nuclear warhead to anywhere in North America.
- In September, North Korea detonated its sixth underground nuclear device, which it claimed was a hydrogen bomb.
- Though unverified, experts believe that the explosion was many times more powerful than previous detonations.
- These developments have increasingly narrowed the scope for military options available to the international community.
- Various governments also recently aired suspicion that the North Korean government orchestrated the world-wide ‘WannaCry’ cyber-attacks.
- This, coupled with the frustration over the continuing nuclear stand-off, led to fresh economic sanctions on North Korea.
What are the sanctions about?
- They were imposed unanimously by the UN Security Council.
- The sanctions include an 89% curb on refined petroleum imports into North Korea, with stringent inspections of ships transferring fuel to the country.
- Also, to cut-off hard currency supply, there was a call for the expulsion of thousands of working North Koreans in other countries within 2 years.
- Despite supporting the sanctions, Beijing and Moscow did stress the potentially destabilising and counterproductive impact of these measures.
What is the way ahead?
- The objective of the sanctions has been to force North Korea to halt its nuclear programme and start disarmament negotiations.
- But diplomacy remains the best option to bring it to disarmament talks.
- A revival of stalled peace negotiations between the P-5 nations and North Korea may be the only realistic alternative on the horizon.
- The fairly successful Iranian nuclear deal provided a constructive template to negotiate with North Korea.
Source: The Hindu
