The United States has announced sanctions on two North Korean officials behind their country’s ballistic missile program.



The steps were the latest in a campaign aimed at forcing North Korea – which has defied years of multilateral and bilateral sanctions – to abandon a weapons program aimed at developing nuclear-tipped missiles capable of hitting the United States.

The US treasury named the officials as Kim Jong-sik and Ri Pyong-chol. It said Kim was reportedly a key figure in North Korea’s efforts to switch its missile program from liquid to solid fuel, while Ri was reported to be a key official in its intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) development.

“Treasury is targeting leaders of North Korea’s ballistic missile programs, as part of our maximum pressure campaign to isolate (North Korea) and achieve a fully denuclearized Korean peninsula,” treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said.

The largely symbolic steps block any property or interests the two might have within US jurisdiction and prohibit any dealings by US citizens with them.

The move followed new United Nations sanctions announced last Friday in response to North Korea’s 29 November test of an ICBM that Pyongyang said put all of the US mainland within range of its nuclear weapons. Those sanctions sought to further limit North Korea’s access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and its earnings from workers abroad.

Quick Guide Are US defences strong enough to ward off North Korean missiles? Show What kind of anti-missile defences does the US possess? The US has various anti-missile options, some designed to take down missiles at short-range and others for medium-to-long-range. The US relies heavily on the US Patriot missile and the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defence (THAAD). The US deployed THAAD to South Korea this year to defend against medium-range missiles. There is a three-phased defence system: ground-based missiles on the Korean peninsula; US naval ships stationed in the Pacific; and two bases in Alaska and California that can launch an estimated 36 interceptors.

Is the US system robust enough to stop a North Korean missile attack? No air defence system offers anything like a complete guarantee of success. The Pentagon offer repeated assurances that air defence systems would be more than a match for any North Korean attack. But when missile defence systems have been put to the test over the last few decades, the performance has been far from reassuring.

The US provided anti-missile defence systems to Israel and Saudi Arabia during the First Gulf War as protection against Iraq's Scud missiles. It was initially claimed that they had shot down 41 of 42 missiles fired by Iraq. But eventually it was acknowledged that only a few missiles had been hit.

Recent tests of interceptors have provided little comfort – with success rates of around 50% on average. The Pentagon celebrated in May when it destroyed a mock warhead over the Pacific but overall the performance has been spotty. Since the newest intercept system was introduced in 2004 only four of nine intercept attempts have been successful. Of the five tests since 2010, only two have been successful.

North Korea declared the UN steps to be an act of war and tantamount to a complete economic blockade.

With their military, scientific and workers party credentials, Ri and Kim Jong-sik are believed to be two of three leading experts considered indispensable to North Korea’s weapons programs.

Photographs and television footage show that the men are clearly among the favourites of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-un. Their behaviour with him is sharply at variance with the obsequiousness of other senior aides, most of whom bow and hold their hands over their mouths when speaking to the young leader.

Ri is one of the most prominent aides, and likely represents the party on the missile program, experts say. Born in 1948, Ri was partly educated in Russia and promoted when Kim started to rise through the ranks in the late 2000s.

Ri has visited China once and Russia twice. He met China’s defence minister in 2008 as the air force commander and accompanied Kim’s father, Kim Jong-il, on a visit to a Russian fighter jet factory in 2011, according to state media.

Kim Jong-sik is a prominent rocket scientist who rose after playing a role in North Korea’s first successful launch of a rocket in 2012. He started his career as a civilian aeronautics technician, but now wears the uniform of a general at the munitions industry department, according to experts and the South Korean government.



The standoff between the United States and North Korea has raised fears of a new conflict on the Korean peninsula, which has remained in a technical state of war since the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.



Washington has said that all options, including military ones, are on the table in dealing with North Korea. It says it prefers a diplomatic solution, but that North Korea has given no indication it is willing to discuss denuclearization.

On Tuesday, the Kremlin, which has long called for the two sides to hold negotiations, said it was ready to act as a mediator if the United States and North Korea were willing for it to play such a role.

“Russia’s readiness to clear the way for de-escalation is obvious,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

Asked to comment on the offer, a spokesman for the US state department, Justin Higgins, said the United States “has the ability to communicate with North Korea through a variety of diplomatic channels.”

“We want the North Korean regime to understand that there is a different path that it can choose, however it is up to North Korea to change course and return to credible negotiations.”

