U.S. wants oil embargo on North Korea

China agreed on Thursday that the UN should take more action against North Korea after its latest nuclear test, while also pushing for dialogue to help resolve the stand-off. North Korea said it would respond to any new UN sanctions and U.S. pressure with “powerful counter-measures”.

The U.S. wants the UN Security Council to impose an oil embargo on North Korea, ban its exports of textiles and the hiring of North Korean labourers abroad, and to subject leader Kim Jong-un to an asset freeze and travel ban, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

“We will respond to the barbaric plotting around sanctions and pressure by the United States with powerful counter-measures of our own,” North Korea said in a statement by its delegation to an economic forum in Vladivostok.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean President Moon Jae-in spoke at the regional meeting in Vladivostok and agreed to try to persuade China and Russia to cut off oil to North Korea as much as possible, according to South Korean officials.

Amid the rising tension, South Korea installed the four remaining launchers of a U.S. anti-missile Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system on a former golf course south of its capital, Seoul, early on Thursday.