China calls for ‘calm and restraint’ after NoKor threatens nuclear strike

BEIJING, China – China called for “calm and restraint” Friday, March 8, after North Korea responded to new UN sanctions with fresh threats of nuclear war and promises to scrap peace agreements.

“China calls on relevant parties to exercise calm and restraint, and avoid actions that might further escalate tensions,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters in Beijing, adding that China “expresses concern” over the situation.

The UN Security Council on Thursday imposed new sanctions against North Korea amid escalating tensions as the North threatened a pre-emptive nuclear strike against the United States.

North Korea earlier said a new war was “unavoidable” because of South Korean-US military exercises. The North’s military “will exercise the right to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to destroy the strongholds of the aggressors,” said the foreign ministry.

The UN council unanimously passed a resolution, agreed by the United States and China, which added new names to the UN sanctions blacklist and tightened restrictions on the North’s financial dealings, notably its “bulk cash” transfers.

Hours after the UN Security Council adopted tough new sanctions on Pyongyang, North Korea announced it was voiding non-aggression pacts with South Korea and severing a hotline with Seoul.

North Korea “abrogates all agreements on non-aggression reached between the North and the South,” the state-run Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea said in a statement.

“It notifies the South side that it will immediately cut off the North-South hotline,” said the statement, which was carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.  – with Agence France-Presse