Ambassador says UN resolution is 'a challenge' for North Korea

MOSCOW, September 12./TASS/. Pyongyang sees Resolution 2375 of the UN Security Council as a challenge for the DPRK, the document violates the country’s sovereignty, North Korean Ambassador to Russia Kim Hyong Jun told a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday.

"The US has published Resolution 2375 of the UN Security Council, coming down on our hydrogen bomb test, and is trying to bring to a full halt our economic development," the ambassador said. "The current resolution - a product of vilest attempts to isolate - strongly violates our sovereignty and is a challenge for our state," the senior diplomat added.

He said Pyongyang sees the resolution passed on September 11 as "illegal, and that is why it resolutely condemns and fully rejects it".

Pyongyang works on nuclear weapons as a means of self-defense from Washington’s hostile actions, Kim Hyong Jun told the news conference. "Nuclear weapons are our means of self-defense and protection from the United States, which continues its hostile actions and nuclear blackmail," Kim said.

"We have lived under US sanctions for decades, practically under the most severe sanctions," the diplomat said. "However, we have been able to acquire whatever we wanted. If the US expects us to hesitate and change our stance, this is a big illusion."

The UN Security Council on Monday adopted a resolution on a new round of sanctions against North Korea in response to the country’s sixth nuclear test. The US-drafted document was supported by all members of the Security Council, including Russia and China. The new resolution bans exports of textiles from North Korea and imposes an embargo on gas condensate deliveries to the country.

The UN Security Council also cut the country’s imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products to 500,000 barrels in the period from October 1 to December 31, 2017, and to 2 million barrels for 2018 and beyond.