North Korea Rejects U.N. Sanctions, Vows to Become Full-Fledged Nuclear State

After a week of constantly escalating hostility, North Korea rejected the recently approved fifth round of harsher United Nations Security Council sanctions against the country. 

Denouncing the U.N.'s call to cease operations in its nuclear weapons program, Pyongyang declared sanctions were not a "fundamental" path to ending discord in the region and vowed it would continue in its pursuit of becoming a legitimate nuclear weapons state, according to The Chicago Tribune. 

"The DPRK, as it did in the past, vehemently denounces and totally rejects the 'resolution on sanctions' against the DPRK, a product of the U.S. hostile policy toward it," said North Korea's Foreign Ministry spokesman in a statement, The Tribune reported.

DPRK is the hip abbreviation of North Korea's say-it-and-believe-it preferred moniker, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

"The world will clearly see what permanent position the DPRK will reinforce as a nuclear weapons state and satellite launcher as a result of the U.S. attitude of prodding the UNSC into cooking up the 'resolution.'"

The United Nations voted unanimously Thursday to approve tougher sanctions against North Korea as punishment for the country's third nuclear missile test launch in February, stoking the ire of North Korea, who described America as a "criminal threatening global peace" just hours before the U.N.'s vote. Pyongyang has since announced its withdrawal from the armistice it reached with South Korea, which ended the Korean war in 1953. Kim has cancelled the peace treaty and closed his country's side of the shared border with South Korea, according to CBS News.

The most recently approved U.N sanctions will "broaden and tighten" the many current financial, economic and trade sanctions that have been in effect against Pyongyang since 2006, and will outright ban the sale of luxuries such as yachts and sports cars in the country, highly cherished toys of North Korea's "ruling elite", according to NBC News. Some of the measures will also seek to stymie North Korea's ability to move its money around the world, and finance and gather material for its weapons programs. 

"Taken together, these sanctions will bite, and bite hard," said Susan E. Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, The Washington Post reported. "The strength, breadth and severity of these sanctions will raise the cost to North Korea of its illicit nuclear program and further constrain its ability to finance and source materials and technology for its ballistic missile, conventional and nuclear weapons programs."

China, North Korea's only major ally, was swift to condemn the country's nuclear missile tests, and voted with the U.S. for harsher U.N. sanctions, but remains noncommittal in its rhetoric. 

"China and North Korea have normal country relations. At the same time, we also oppose North Korea's conducting of nuclear tests," a spokesman for China Foreign Ministry said Friday.

"China calls on the relevant parties to be calm and exercise restraint and avoid taking any further action that would cause any further escalations."

While China's move to exact stricter sanctions on North Korea suggests Beijing may finally have had enough of its neighbor, experts say don't expect too much out of China when it comes to enforcing the new sanctions. China has a history of agreeing to such measures and then only ostensibly enacting them. 

"Beijing sees North Korea as a problem that must be managed, not as one that must be removed," said David Kang, an expert on Korea at the University of Southern California, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

"There is zero chance that this new resolution will have any effect on North Korean behavior," claimed Professor Kang.  "Pressure does not work on North Korea."

North Korea has been wrestling with the threat of further sanctions ever since launching the country's third nuclear missile test last month. The test was the nation's largest and most powerful launch to date, according to Reuters.  The "explosion-like" nuclear missile test launch produced a seismic magnitude about twice the size of a 2009 test, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty Organization said at a news conference. North Korea claimed the missile test was just the "first response" to threats from the U.S., and vowed it would move forward with "second and third measures of greater intensity" if America remains hostile toward the nation, USA Today reported. 

Friday, Pyongyang announced it would attack the U.S. with a preemptive nuclear missile strike that would consume Washington, D.C. in a "sea of fire" in retaliation for allegedly stoking hostility with the U.N. sanctions.  

"Intercontinental ballistic missiles and various other missiles, which have already set their striking targets, are now armed with lighter, smaller and diversified nuclear warheads and are placed on a standby status," Army Gen. Kang Pyo Kong said. "When we shell (the missiles), Washington, which is the stronghold of evils, .... will be engulfed in a sea of fire."

Washington replied to North Korea's harsh words with condemnation. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice declared the insular nation's antagonism will "achieve nothing".

This is far from the first time North Korea has lobbed a threat at the U.S. The insular nation denounced the U.S. as its "sworn enemy" and announced more nuclear tests earlier in January in retaliation for the United Nations Security Council's unanimous decision to tighten sanctions in the nation. Some experts on the country and its history with nuclear warfare believe the recent aggression is nothing more than propaganda or idle "saber rattling."