U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said Monday that the UN has failed for decades to contain North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, and that extreme sanctions would be needed at this point to rein in the regime, which claims to have tested a hydrogen bomb over the weekend.
“To the members of the security council, I must say, enough is enough,” Haley said at an emergency session of the UN Security Council in New York. “We have taken an incremental approach, and despite the best of intentions, it has not worked.”
“We have engaged in numerous, direct and multilateral talks with the North Korean regime, and time after time, they have not worked,” she said.
“The time for half measures in the Security Council is over,” she said. “The time has come to exhaust all of our diplomatic means before it’s too late.”
Haley said North Korea is “begging for war” by repeatedly conducting missile tests, including of an intercontinental ballistic missile, and detonating a nuclear bomb.
“War is something the U.S. never wants, we don’t want it now, but our country’s patience is not unlimited,” Haley said. “We will defend our allies and territory.”
The Trump administration has indicated it will be looking to sanction any country that does any business with North Korea, and Haley indicated in New York that those sorts of steps were being considered.
“The U.S. will look at every country that does business with North Korea as a country that is giving aide to their reckless and dangerous nuclear intentions,” she said.
She also criticized proposals for both North Korea and South Korea to each stop military activities, which would include an end to U.S. military activities in the region, and said that idea is “insulting.”
“When a rogue nation points an ICBM at you, you don’t take steps to lower your guard,” Haley said.
