Washington: The United States on Monday (local time) said that the earlier sanctions imposed on North Korea will remain in place as US President Donald Trump is not keen to slap additional penalties on the communist country for its nuclear weapons programme.
“Look, the sanctions that were in place before are certainly still on. They are very tough sanctions. The President just doesn’t feel it’s necessary to add additional sanctions at this time. Nothing else to add,” Yonhap News Agency quoted White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders as saying.
On March 22, Trump removed additional “large-scale” US Treasury sanctions on North Korea.
“It was announced today by the US Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea. I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!” Trump tweeted.
This move was largely being viewed as Trump’s bid to keep denuclearisation talks with North Korea on track after the Hanoi summit ended abruptly last month without any agreement.
The White House refused to comment on Trump’s move but added that the President took the step because he “likes” North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
“President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary,” Sanders had said, without revealing the exact sanctions which have been removed.
While it is still unclear as to which sanctions were stopped, the US Treasury Department had recently targeted two Chinese shipping companies for helping Pyongyang skirt UN-imposed sanctions.
Despite the breakdown of the second US-North Korea summit, Trump had maintained that the relationship with the elusive state continues to be “good”.
Ties between the US and North Korea have hit a roadblock over the ease of sanctions, where Pyongyang sought relief as a recognition of the steps taken towards denuclearisation.
Washington has, until now, reinforced that relief in sanctions would only be given after the communist country carries out “complete and verifiable” denuclearisation.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]