North Korea on Thursday warned of "tougher countermeasures for self-defense" after the UN Security Council unanimously imposed its strongest-ever sanctions on the country.
The country's foreign ministry issued a statement on Thursday calling the move "another excess of authority and violation of the DPRK's sovereignty", according to Al Jazeera.
"Many countries - including all the permanent member states of the UNSC - have so far conducted thousands of nuclear tests and rocket launches, but the UNSC has never prevented them from doing so," said the ministry's statement, which was carried on the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
The new sanctions came after three months of tough negotiations between the United States and fellow veto-wielding council member China.
The sanctions, passed by a 15-0 vote, place a cap on North Korea’s key coal exports and demands that North Korea "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs".
Under the resolution, North Korea will be restricted from exporting more than 7.5 million tons of coal in 2017, a reduction of 62 percent from 2015.
The sanctions are a response to North Korea’s constant nuclear tests which are in violation of previous UN resolutions. The last such test occurred on September 9.
"[President Barack] Obama and his lackeys are sadly mistaken if they calculate that they can force the DPRK to abandon its line of nuclear weaponization and undermine its status as a nuclear power through base sanctions to pressurize it," the North Korean statement said.
North Korea, which insists its nuclear weapons are a deterrent to U.S. "aggression," brushed aside earlier sanctions that targeted its weapons exports, access to financial markets and imports of luxury goods.