By Jun Ji-hye
South Korea and the United States will push for new U.N. Security Council (UNSC) sanctions to curb oil supplies to North Korea in the event of the North conducting additional nuclear tests, sources said Thursday.
The move comes as Pyongyang is increasing activity at its Punggye-ri nuclear test site, sending strong indications that it is ready for a sixth test.
“Curbing oil exports to the North can add to existing sanctions,” a source said, asking not to be named.
This, however, is virtually impossible if China refuses to cooperate.
Nuclear envoys of South Korea and the United States agreed in Seoul, March 22, to toughen punitive measures against Pyongyang if it continues provocations.
At the time, U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Joseph Yun and South Korea’s Representative to the six-party talks Kim Hong-kyun, said they will push for harsher measures through the UNSC and also will introduce a new set of unilateral sanctions.
Oil supplies are regarded as a “lifeline” for Pyongyang. Cutting them off would mean that sanctions against the Kim Jong-un regime would increase to their maximum level.
But the plan will require cooperation from China as the country, the North’s only major ally, is its largest oil supplier.
“China holds the key to curbing oil exports to the North,” the source said, adding that it remains uncertain whether Beijing will accept such a plan.
Seoul and Washington will also consider a measure preventing the Kim regime from sending its workers overseas who are pressed to send hard currency to the regime.
The North carried out its first nuclear test in 2006 and four more in 2009, 2013 and January and September of last year. In response to the previous tests, the UNSC has adopted tougher and tougher sanctions including placing a ceiling on the North’s exports of coal, a major source of money suspected to be used in advancing its nuclear weapons capability.
Some observers are raising the possibility that the North could carry out multiple tests in a day this time to show off its nuclear capability as Pakistan did when it conducted three tests in a day in 1998.
A military official said, on condition of anonymity, that multiple tests in a day are not impossible in theory, given that the North has 50 kilograms of weapons-grade plutonium, sufficient to manufacture about 10 nuclear weapons. But he added: “Nobody can speak conclusively as a number of complicated technologies will involve such tests.”
U.S.-based North Korea monitoring website 38 North said Wednesday that satellite imagery of the North’s test site showed up to 100 people gathered at its main administrative area, an unusual scene last observed ahead of the North’s fourth nuclear test in 2013.
The previous day, the website also cited satellite imagery showing the continued presence of three to four vehicles or equipment trailers at the North Portal, an entrance to the underground site.