US for peaceful resolution of North Korean nuclear and missile issue

In press briefing at the New York Foreign Press Center, Acting Assistant Secretary of State (Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs), Susan Thornton, said the DPRK's actions will also prevent the country from developing its economy and improving the lives of its people. "The international community will never accept the DPRK as a nuclear-armed state, which is Pyongyang's stated goal," she added.

Answering a question, she said there has been underway an effort by the international community to make sure that the belligerent and illicit behaviour by the regime in Pyongyang does not unduly punish or affect the people of North Korea. And so there are number of UN agencies that continue to work in North Korea, continue to make very concerted efforts to make sure that needed humanitarian assistance reaches directly to the North Korean people. "And we've made strenuous efforts over the years to make sure that we can monitor that aid, to make sure that it is going directly into the hands of the people that need it," she said.

Ms Thornton said her country would be prepared to respond and to respond overwhelmingly in order to protect its interests. "What we want to do, remember, and the strategy is, to increase the pressure, increase diplomatic isolation, increase our deterrence, our military deterrence, in order to get the regime in Pyongyang to engage meaningfully in a discussion of denuclearisation, which is the goal of the international community in this engagement and in this strategy," she added.

She said they have unprecedented ratcheting up of sanctions in the last couple of months. "We're working to implement the sanctions regime. We had UN Security Council 2371 Resolution, which involved banning things like seafood and other exports from North Korea. We barely had time to start implementing that one when we had the nuclear test. Then we had, in record succession, UN Security Council Resolution 2375. Both of these resolutions unanimously passed by the UN Security Council, the second one within a week's time of beginning negotiations. It's an unprecedented kind of coming together of the international community, blocking off a number of additional export sectors for North Korea," she said, adding that they were in the process now of working with everyone to really implement these sanctions.