"North Korea in many countries has a diplomatic presence that clearly exceeds their diplomatic needs", Murphy told reporters.
A working group led by Acting Deputy Secretary of State Tom Shannon is attempting to address issues "irritating" the U.S. -Russia relationship, said Tillerson, who is set to meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov this month in Alaska.
The affirmation, in a US-ASEAN foreign ministerial meeting in Washington, was effectively a call on China, the long-time economic and diplomatic benefactor of North Korea, and other countries to tighten economic screws on North Korea in accordance with the United Nations resolutions.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Thursday pressed Southeast Asian governments to ensure "leak-proof" enforcement of sanctions against North Korea and to prevent the pariah nation's diplomats from conducting business that could benefit its weapons programs. He said the US will take action against countries failing to fully implement existing United Nations penalties on doing business with Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, some officials of ASEAN members acknowledged concerns about North Korea and said that they are also concerned about trade relations with the United States.
"If you condition our national security efforts on someone adopting our values, we probably can't achieve our national security goals or our national security interests", Tillerson said. "I'd say we're at about dial setting 5 or 6 right now", he said, without saying how high the dial goes.
The United States said on Wednesday that it hopes to work with China to halt North Korea's nuclear program, but warned that if this fails it might resort to sanctions.
He said Washington would urge world powers to fully implement UN Security Council sanctions against Kim Jong-Un's regime "because no one has ever fully implemented those".
Tillerson also underscored the importance to the USA of ASEAN and renewed an appeal to all countries with claims to the disputed South China Sea to stop the construction and militarization of bases.
Mourinho demands more from Manchester United fans
So hopefully tomorrow they have this feeling it's a semi-final second leg and more important than a quarter-final second leg. They managed to broke the defiance of the United in the second half when they scored two goals in the span of three minutes.
"Southeast Asia is replete with economic opportunities and it's too big to miss out on", he said.
He said the USA objective was to cut North Korea's economic ties overseas, including the export of workers, mainly to China and Russian Federation, whose wages are used as a source of foreign income by the cash-strapped government.
Manalo called the meeting with Tillerson and Trump's travel plans "encouraging" signs.
Considering the vast majority of North Korea's trade is with China, its long-time ally, these secondary sanctions would most likely be on Chinese firms.
Tillerson says Trump's "America First" approach means restoring balance in USA relationships with allies.
A week ago, leaders from ASEAN sidestepped criticizing China over its expansion in the disputed South China Sea, in a mildly worded statement after the summit in the Philippines.
This coincided with moves by China and ASEAN to draft a framework to negotiate a code of conduct. Murphy said Tillerson had stressed that this process needed "room and space" through avoiding fortifying existing claims.
The United States has conducted freedom of navigation operations to challenge South China Sea claims, greatly angering China, but has yet do so under Trump.
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