The United States urged on Friday the United Nations Security Council to maintain tough economic sanctions on North Korea to pressure Kim Jong Un to commit to his pledge to denuclearize the Korean peninsula.
"We need to see Chairman Kim do what he promised the world he would do," US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters after meeting with the Security Council.
Pompeo traveled to New York for the one-hour meeting with the council to provide a first briefing to the top UN body on North Korea since Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un's summit.
The United States believes that North Korea can shed its "pariah" status from its nuclear and missile programs, but "it will take full enforcement of sanctions for us to get there," he said.
Right now, Pompeo said, North Korea is "illegally smuggling" refined petroleum products into the country beyond the quota of 500,000 barrels per year allowed under UN sanctions, mainly by ship-to-ship transfers.
US documents sent to the sanctions committee and obtained by The Associated Press cite 89 instances between January 1 and May 30 in which North Korean tankers likely delivered refined products "illicitly procured" via such transfers.
North Korea is also evading sanctions by smuggling coal by sea, across borders, through cyber thefts and other criminal activities, and by keeping workers in some countries which he did not name, Pompeo said.
These actions are all "generating significant revenues for the regime and they must be stopped," he said.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley made clear that the best way to support US diplomacy on North Korea was "to not loosen the sanctions."
"We can't do one thing until we see North Korea respond to their promise to denuclearize," Haley said.
Pompeo's talks in New York came a day after Russia and China put a six-month hold on a US request to cut off deliveries of refined oil to North Korea.
China and Russia have argued that North Korea should be rewarded with the prospect of eased sanctions for opening up dialogue with the United States and halting missile tests.
Last week, the United States asked a UN sanctions committee to order a halt to shipments of oil products to North Korea after accusing Pyongyang of exceeding a cap on fuel deliveries with illegal imports.
But Russia and China said they needed more time to consider the US request and to review Washington's allegations of sanctions-busting by North Korea.
Trump opened up prospects for an end to the standoff with North Korea when he met in Singapore on June 12 with Kim, who agreed to work toward denuclearization of the peninsula.
The agreement however was short on details -- North Korea has long trumpeted a denuclearization goal, but one that it sees as a lengthy process of undefined multilateral disarmament, rather than a unilateral dismantlement of its nuclear arsenal.
And more than a month later, no concrete progress has been reported.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told the council that it must be ready to grant temporary exemptions to sanctions in specific areas such as communications to help push North Korea toward progress, according to diplomats.
Kang told the council that President Moon Jae-in is expected to visit Pyongyang in the coming months, they said.
The council last year adopted three rafts of sanctions targeting North Korea's economy in response to Pyongyang's sixth nuclear test and a series of ballistic missile launches.
Those sanctions banned North Korea's exports of raw commodities while severely restricting supplies of oil -- vital for the country's military.
