US will pay 'heavy price' if UN votes in favour of tougher sanctions: N Korea

The North's Foreign Ministry issued a statement early Monday saying it is watching the United States' moves closely and threatened it is "ready and willing" to respond with measures of its own.

The United States has called for a vote on Monday, New York time, on new UN sanctions against North Korea.

Last Tuesday, the US circulated a draft resolution proposing the toughest-ever UN sanctions on North Korea, including a ban on all oil and natural gas exports to the country and a freeze on all foreign financial assets of the government and its leader, Kim Jong Un.

Security Council diplomats, who weren't authorised to speak publicly because talks have been private, said the US and China were still negotiating the text late Sunday.

Previous UN sanctions resolutions have been negotiated between the United States and China, and have taken weeks or months. But the Trump administration is demanding a vote in six days.

"The US is trying to use the DPRK's legitimate self-defensive measures as an excuse to strangle and completely suffocate it," the statement said, using the acronym for North Korea's formal name.

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council to vote on on a draft resolution imposing new sanctions on North Korea after the United States toned down its demands in a bid to win support from Russia and China.

Washington has led the international drive to punish the rogue state after it detonated its sixth and most powerful nuclear device.

The United had originally pushed for a strict oil embargo, as well as a freeze on the foreign assets of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un.

A new draft text circulated late on Sunday maintains an embargo on natural gas but would limit deliveries of refined oil to

5,00,000 barrels for three months from October 1 and 2 million barrels from January 1 for a period of 12 months, according to the text obtained by AFP.

Crude oil supplies would be capped at their current level.