China Bans Jet Fuel, Oil Exports To North Korea

Chinese Commerce Ministry has decided to ban trade with North Korea including import of gold and rare earth metals and export of jet fuel, oil products used to make rocket fuel.

China’s move to ban trade with North Korea comes in line with new United Nations sanctions on Pyongyang, Reuters reported Tuesday.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) has so far adopted five sanctions against North Korea. The most recent was adopted in March 2016 after a nuclear test and satellite launch early in the year.

“The resolutions are to impose and strengthen sanctions on North Korea for continuing to develop its nuclear weapons program and call on Pyongyang to dismantle its nuclear program “in a complete, verifiable, and irreversible manner" and refrain from ballistic missile tests,” UNSC stated in the resolution.

However, North Korea strongly denounced the UNSC on Saturday for rejecting its recent demand to punish the United States for staging what it claims to be war exercises aimed at toppling its communist regime.

An unidentified spokesperson from the North's foreign ministry was quoted by Yonhap as saying last Saturday that the country had recently demanded the UNSC hold an emergency meeting and review joint military exercises between South Korea and the US.

"The reason we filed such a complaint was because the U.S.-South Korea joint military exercises, in terms of their scope and aim, are threatening world peace and security while violently violating our right to self-defense stated in the U.N. Charter," the spokesperson said in a report carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.