Russia calls for special UNSC meet on N Korea
March 5, 2013, 2:03 pm

Russia’s UN envoy Vitaly Churkin [Getty Images]

US and China struck a preliminary agreement on the draft resolution on new UN sanctions against North Korea.

Russia, which now holds the presidency in the UN Security Council, will hold consultations on North Korea today.

The meeting is expected to come up with a draft resolution extending sanctions against North Korea.

The resolution might be passed by the 15-member UNSC this week.

The international community is concerned about North Korea’s nuclear and missile programmes.

Pyongyang is already under the burden of UN sanctions which is essentially blacklisting trading and financial firms reportedly involved with such programmes.

The sanctions have also restricted the import of luxury goods, an effort directed at the country’s ruling elite.

In January the UN approved a round of sanctions in response to North Korea’s second rocket launch. Pyongyang responded with military threats to the United States and South Korea.

On February 12 Pyongyang confirmed they had conducted a third nuclear test, defying UN resolutions.

Russia and China both said they would oppose any foreign military intervention in North Korea over its recent nuclear test.

“We are against the carrying out of a nuclear test in North Korea,” Yang Jiechi, China’s foreign minister told a joint news conference after talks with Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister  in Moscow earlier in February.

“The UN Security Council should give an adequate response … but the action should be directed towards peace on the Korean peninsula,” he had said.

Lavrov asserted China and Russia had agreed that it was “vitally important not to … allow the situation to be used as a pretext for military intervention.”

Ria Novosti with additional inputs from Daria Chernyshova