WASHINGTON”•US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged his Southeast Asian colleagues on Thursday to take further steps to isolate North Korea’s pariah regime.
President Donald Trump’s top diplomat met foreign ministers and top envoys from the 10-strong Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Washington.
In Manila, Senator Richard Gordon called on the Senate to support the International Red Cross and the Red Cross Movement’s bid to achieve a world without nuclear weapons to protect humanity.
He made the statement following a statement from North Korea’s state-controlled media saying America’s “military provocations” risked triggering a nuclear conflict.
He filed Senate Resolution 349 expressing the full support of the Senate of the Philippines to the appeal of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
North Korea is under UN sanctions targeting its efforts to develop a nuclear missile arsenal, but Washington wants its Asian allies to do more.
Deputy assistant secretary for East Asian and Pacific Affairs Patrick Murphy told reporters that North Korea’s foreign missions were suspiciously large.
These embassies, he suggested, were not just diplomatic bases but served to help Pyongyang illegally to evade sanctions and to carry out other “nefarious acts.”
And he cited as an example the murder with a nerve agent in February of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s brother Kim Jong-Nam in a Malaysian airport.
“And so countries have agreed, and in some cases have limited the size or reduced the size of the North Korean diplomatic presence in their countries,” Murphy said.
“Some countries are taking a look at the presence of North Korean workers, which, again, is another revenue stream for North Korea, and is this appropriate?”
Murphy stressed that ties with Pyongyang were a sovereign matter for Asean states, but confirmed that Tillerson had urged them to review their positions.
“I do believe some countries are taking a look at their presence in North Korea and trying to assess if it’s appropriate or not,” he said. With Macon Ramos-Araneta
