Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has voiced support for the unanimous United Nations decision and called on North Korea to refrain from repeated nuclear tests and missile launches.
The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously adopted a US-drafted resolution imposing new targeted sanctions on a handful of North Korean officials and entities, in response to a series of ballistic missile tests this year that are banned under UN resolutions. "They keep sending nuclear-powered strategic weapons to South Korea like aircraft carriers and bombers", which actually are meant to invade the North by launching another war.
A South Korean civic group which offered to provide anti-malarial supplies to North Korea said Monday the North has rejected its proposal because of the South's support of new United Nations sanctions.
"(Washington) talked about the possibility of dialogue but it is nonsense to mention dialogue while laying out unfair preconditions and applying maximum pressure", the spokesman said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.
The statement said the latest resolution was said to have been put together by the United States and China in the "back room". "But other country can't be allowed to test or launch any object which goes with the words of nuclear or 'ballistic.' That is really the height of shameless arrogance, self-righteousness and double standards", the statement said.
Since Moon's May 10 inauguration, North Korea has test-fired three ballistic missiles in an apparent show of its resolve to expand its weapons arsenal to cope with what it calls USA hostility.
North Korea is pushing hard to build a nuclear-tipped missile that can reach the continental United States.
The North says it needs nuclear weapons to forestall the threat of US attack.
"It is a fatal miscalculation if the countries ... would even think that they can delay or hold in check the eye-opening development of the [North's] nuclear forces even for a moment", the spokesman said.
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While she said the USA would "continue to seek a peaceful, diplomatic resolution", she made clear they were "prepared to counteract North Korean aggression through other means, if necessary".
The North's Foreign Ministry "condemns and outrightly rejects the sanctions racket put forth by the United States and the U.N. Security Council to prevent the strengthening of our nuclear deterrence", a ministry spokesman said.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin told defense ministers and experts from 39 countries that Pyongyang's missile defense system "has a real function". "That is why it is alarming".
As tensions have increased between Pyongyang and Washington, the U.S. has been pressing China to rein in Kim Jong Un's nuclear programme. "That is our principle position".
U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, speaking at the same conference, said that North Korea presented a "clear and present danger".
North Korea conducted its most recent ballistic missile launch on Monday.
The latest sanctions target North Korea's army and Ministry of the People's Armed Forces, its revenue from mining coal and minerals, and several overseas financial operations, according to the Treasury statement.
But Mr Fomin had similar sentiments.
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