Tillerson to chair Security Council meeting aimed at getting members — mainly China — to force Kim Jong Un into talks, and avoid war
President Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping chat as they walk along the front patio of the Mar-a-Lago estate after a bilateral meeting in Palm Beach, Florida, April 7,2017.
UNITED NATIONS — With tension rising on the Korean Peninsula and the armed forces of the U. S., China, North and South Korea on heightened alert, the Trump administration will turn Friday to the most powerful U. N. body — the 15-member Security Council — to try to show a united front in the face of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s defiance .
The White House luncheon with President Trump for U. N. Security Council ambassadors earlier this week was a prelude, one Security Council diplomat told CBS News, to the Friday meeting at U. N. Headquarters to be chaired by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. The objective is to tighten adherence to existing sanctions against the North, and draw the isolated regime back to the bargaining table.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who was at the White House briefing Wednesday on North Korea, joins «CBS This Morning» to discuss whether…
U. S. Ambassador to the U. N. Nikki Haley has made it clear, along with other Trump administration officials, that they want China to solve the problem by applying greater pressure to the Kim regime. China is North Korea’s most valuable trading partner, which the U. S. believes gives it the unique, required leverage to rein-in Kim.
«We’ll be reinforcing these same messages of the need for everyone to fulfill their obligations under the sanctions accords and fully implement the sanctions, and we’re going to be discussing what next steps may be necessary to increase the pressure on the regime at Pyongyang to have them reconsider their current posture, » Tillerson said in an interview with Fox News on Thursday.
The invitation to attend the meeting sent by Haley to other Council member states said North Korea’s «pursuit of weapons of mass destruction represents one of the gravest threats to international peace and security that the Security Council faces.»
Tillerson will host the meeting because the U. S. currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council. Both he and President Trump have been alarmed by the rapid increase in the North’s nuclear program under Kim Jong Un, pointing out that in 2016 alone the North conducted two nuclear tests and 24 ballistic missile launches.
All 100 senators went to the White House to be briefed on the latest developments surrounding North Korea’s nuclear program.
