China and Russia veto new UN sanctions on N Korea

United Nations: China and Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution sponsored by the United States on Thursday that would have imposed tough new sanctions on North Korea for its spate of intercontinental ballistic missile launches that can be used to deliver nuclear weapons.

The vote in the 15-member Security Council was 13-2 and marked a first serious division among the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN's most powerful body on a North Korea sanctions resolution.

A united Security Council imposed sanctions after North Korea's first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and tightened them over the years seeking to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and cut off funding.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield appealed for unity before Thursday's vote, calling North Korea's six ICBM tests this year a threat to the entire international community.

She stressed that in the last sanctions resolution adopted by the council in December 2017, members committed to further restricting petroleum exports to North Korea if it conducted a ballistic missile launch capable of reaching intercontinental ranges.

North Korea suspended ICBM tests for five years, but she urged the council to act against its dangerous and threatening ICBM launches in the last five months including one on Wednesday.

China's U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun reiterated Beijing's opposition to new sanctions against North Korea ahead of Thursday's vote.

He called instead for the United States to take meaningful, practical actions to resume its dialogue with the country and find a political solution to the situation on the Korean Peninsula, where the 1950-53 war between North Korea and South Korea stopped with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

With tensions on the peninsula, Zhang said, it's important to stay calm, avoid any provocative actions and really give hope to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea -- the country's official name -- by lifting some sanctions instead of imposing new ones.

We do not think additional sanctions will be helpful in responding to the current situation, he told reporters Thursday. It can only get the situation even worse. so that's what we really want to avoid.