‘Anachronistic’: N. Korea slams ‘international hooligan US brandishing sanctions club’

North Korea’s foreign ministry has criticized the “anachronistic” attempts by the US to put national legislation above international law by introducing unilateral sanctions against sovereign states. It also denounced Washington’s “childish” travel ban for US citizens.

The “DPRK strongly condemns and rejects the so-called unilateral sanctions by the US, and all other countries in the world also need to seriously ponder over the outrageous and unlawful act of the US,” a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the DPRK said in a statement, carried by KCNA.

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Earlier this week, Donald Trump signed 'Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act' – one package, which ushers in further economic sanctions against North Korea, Iran and Russia.

Signing the bill, Trump stated that the legislation “sends a clear message to North Korea that the American people will not tolerate their dangerous and destabilizing behavior.”

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North Korea quickly condemned the move and rejected America's unilateral economic punitive measures, while calling Washington’s behavior a “criminal conduct.”

“The act of the US which is so fond of rigging up sanctions law and brandishing the sanctions club against other sovereign states is no better than that of a hooligan which cannot be allowed by international law,” the spokesman said.

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Pyongyang reasoned that Washington is just “terrified” of the rapid advance of the Korean nuclear and missile program, which achieved an “undeniable reality” of possessing atomic and hydrogen bombs, as well as intercontinental ballistic means to deliver them. Pyongyang made clear that US sanctions will never work on North Korea.

“The sanctions campaign by the US might work on the other countries, but never with the DPRK,” the spokesman defiantly said. “The anachronistic daydream of the US politicians of damaging by means of sanctions the overall national power and strategic prestige of the DPRK which has been markedly boosted are being subject to humiliation within the US as well.”

The ministry advised Washington to focus on its national issues rather than “hopeless sanctions racket” against North Korea.

Pyongyang also criticized the travel ban the US State Department introduced for Americans starting from next month. The ban was prompted by the tragic and mysterious death of US college student Otto Warmbier in June who was previously jailed in North Korea.

The North Koreans called the travel ban “a vile measure to limit the people-to-people exchange so as not to allow the US citizens to see the true picture” of the DPRK.

“The US administration took this childish measure of issuing a travel ban to our country while finding fault with the exercise of legitimate right of the sovereign state,” the foreign ministry spokesman said, noting that “there is no country in the world that will ignore the foreigners who committed hostile acts within its territory.”

The US has meanwhile drafted a UN Security Council resolution which seeks to cripple North Korea’s remaining export revenue. It is due to be discussed Saturday, Reuters reports. A diplomatic source told the agency that the draft appears to be a “compromise” which does not target the Korean people, so there's “confidence” that Russian and China would support it.

READ MORE: Russian and Chinese initiative on solving Korean Peninsula’s problems

Moscow and Beijing have consistently maintained that strangling Pyongyang with new sanctions is not a way out of the crisis. China, though, has satisfied some of Washington’s demands and has reduced its level of cooperation with North Korea.

Instead, Russia and China has put forward a joint initiative that could help solve this crisis. It is based on the Chinese idea of a “double freezing” of both the missile and nuclear testing by the DPRK and the large-scale joint military exercises by the US and the South Korea, plus “parallel advance” towards a full denuclearization of the Peninsula.

READ MORE: US rejects Russo-Chinese proposal to suspend drills in South Korea

The US, has however, rejected the idea, saying that military drills with allies is a decades-long ironclad policy, while insisting that Beijing is not doing enough to pressure its neighbor into submission.