The United States plans to introduce a new resolution in the UN Security Council in response to North Korea's most recent ballistic missile tests, Washington's special envoy for North Korean affairs said Monday, according to the AFP news agency.
The tests, which included launching an intercontinental ballistic missile last month that could conceivably strike deep inside the United States, are "clear violations of multiple UN Security Council resolutions," said Sung Kim, the US Special Representative for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
"We must work together to come up with a decisive response to DPRK's provocative behavior," Kim said, calling the launches "escalatory behavior."
A senior US official said recently that two recent missile tests conducted by North Korea were of a new ICBM system.
The official added that those tests marked a "serious escalation" by Pyongyang that will be punished with fresh sanctions.
Washington has meanwhile failed to persuade China and Russia to support intensified UN sanctions on North Korea.
"We remain open to diplomacy, but it really is up to Pyongyang to decide the path forward," Kim said on Tuesday, according to AFP.
Former US President Donald Trump tried to reach an agreement with North Korea while in office. Kim and Trump met in Hanoi in 2019 for a summit that left nuclear talks at a standstill.
The pair had met three times since June 2018 but made little progress towards denuclearization.
The Biden administration reached out to North Korea shortly after taking office, but the country did not respond to those overtures.
In Biden’s first policy speech to Congress, he said nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran posed threats that would be addressed through “diplomacy and stern deterrence”.
Responding to that speech, North Korea dismissed the idea of talks with Washington, saying Biden’s speech was “intolerable” and “a big blunder."