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US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (AP/Yonhap News)

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is presiding over an Apr. 28 ministerial meeting of UN Security Council (UNSC) members at UN headquarters in New York to discuss the North Korean nuclear issue.

In an Apr. 3 press conference held for the US’s assumption of the rotating UNSC presidency, US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said a UNSC ministerial meeting on the non-proliferation issue would be held on Apr. 28, with a particular focus on North Korea’s nuclear activities.

“We do need to talk about [the North Korean nuclear issue] in terms of what are we as a council . . . going to do to deal with North Korea and how do we push that forward,” Haley said on the reason for the meaning.

“The United States has seen China for 25-plus years say that they are concerned about North Korea, but we haven‘t seen them act like they’re concerned about North Korea. This [Donald Trump] administration wants to see them act,” she added.

The UNSC ministerial meeting is drawing particular attention as a kind of follow-up measure to the summit scheduled on Apr. 6 and 7 between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping. At the summit, the US is expected to seek China’s participation in stronger sanctions against the North, while applying pressure by bringing the issue to the multilateral stage of the UN. North Korean human rights issues could also be discussed at a UNSC human rights meeting proposed by Haley for Apr. 18.

Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives passed a bill calling for North Korea’s re-designation as a state sponsor of terrorism by a 398-to-3 vote and a resolution denouncing North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile testing by a 394-to-1 vote at a plenary session on Apr. 4.

The North Korea State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation Act of 2017 cites the assassination of Kim Jong-nam (older brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un) in calling for the US State Department to decide on whether to re-designate North Korea as a state sponsor terrorism. The resolution denounces North Korea’s ballistic missile launches and calls for swift deployment of a THAAD system on the Korean Peninsula.

By passing the bill and legislation within five days of their passage by its Committee of Foreign Affairs, the House appeared to be lending its support to pressure on Beijing ahead of the US-China summit.

By Yi Yong-in, Washington correspondent

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