Park reaffirms sanctions to end N. Korea nuke program

President Park Geun-hye Monday reaffirmed South Korea's policy stance to impose sanctions on North Korea to press the communist country to give up its nuclear weapons program.

"The Korean Peninsula is currently faced with a security situation which is unprecedentedly grave and grim," Park said in her speech delivered at the National Assembly, intended to outline the government's budgetary requirements for 2017.

She said North Korea's nuclear weapons program is moving from the test phase toward the weaponization stage, highlighting that Seoul "will muster the international community's forces to put stronger-than-ever pressure and sanctions so as to leave North Korea with no other choice (than denuclearization)."

Her message comes as the United Nations Security Council is in the process of adopting a fresh round of sanctions on North Korea after the country conducted its fifth nuclear test last month in defiance of the latest UNSC Resolution 2270. The resolution passed in March was the strongest sanctions slapped on Pyongyang to date.

South Korea is also reviewing its own set of sanctions to push the North harder to disarm itself.

Park's remarks suggest South Korea's sanctions approach would remain unwavering after the United States and North Korea recently explored the possibility of dialogue over the denuclearization issue.

North Korean Vice Foreign Minister Han Song-ryol and the North's U.N. Ambassador Jang Il-hun held two-day talks with former U.S. nuclear negotiators Robert Gallucci and Joseph DeTrani in Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur on Friday and Saturday.

The U.S. later downplayed the rare meeting as non-governmental contact that has nothing to do with the U.S. government's official position.

The contact was nevertheless largely seen by many observers as an attempt to test each other's positions for the possibility of formal talks ahead of the U.S. presidential election slated for early next month. (Yonhap)