23 September, 2017
"We have to urge these countries to cut their diplomatic and economic relationships with North Korea", Mr Kono said in a speech at Columbia University on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.
A Japanese foreign ministry official told Kyodo that Minister Kono said during the meeting that Seoul's decision to provide humanitarian aid to the North could hinder the sanctions and pressure imposed on the regime. "We continue to strive for the reasonable and not the emotional approach".
Trump on Friday called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a "madman", a day after Kim dubbed him a "mentally deranged USA dotard" who would face the "highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history" in retaliation for Trump saying the US will "totally destroy" North Korea if it threatens the United States or its allies.
The North accuses the United States, which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, of planning to invade and regularly threatens to destroy it and its Asian allies.
Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho spoke to reporters in NY during the UN General Assembly shortly after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made an unprecedented televised statement, accusing Trump of being "mentally deranged". He also mocked Kim Jong Un with a nickname, saying "Rocket man is on a suicide mission".
And it's possible that North Korea is able to undermine them. He even said that he did not know Kim's exact thoughts.
Addressing the U.N. General Assembly on Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said that Pyongyang should not continue in a "dangerous direction" with its nuclear program and that worldwide negotiations are "the only way out".
To comply with a UN Security Council resolution calling for sanctions over North Korea's nuclear activity, China said Friday that it will limit its exports of refined petroleum products to Pyongyang as well as ban imports of the North's textiles.
The Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on its website that China would limit exports of refined petroleum products from October 1 and ban exports of condensates and liquefied natural gas immediately to comply with the latest United Nations sanctions.
The institute said Africa and the Middle East "together now host over two-thirds of the world's displaced population", adding the number of people displaced a year ago has "increased significantly" to more than 60 million. China and Russian Federation had initially opposed a United States proposal to completely ban oil exports, but later agreed to the reduced measures.
Mr Kono estimated that North Korea would lose 90 per cent of its export revenue if all nations implemented existing UN Security Council resolutions.
Meanwhile, KCNA Watch, on Saturday carried another North Korean official statement on USA initiative for getting anti-Pyongyang UN sanctions approved, saying "The U.S.is a nuclear rogue state that deserves denunciation by the world".
