Moscow Needs Time for Inter-Agency Coordination on North Korea UN Resolution

Russia needs time to conduct the inter-agency coordination of the approach toward UN draft sanctions resolution regarding the North Korean nuclear program, the Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Thursday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) – It was earlier reported that the UN Security Council may consider the draft resolution on new sanctions against North Korea next week in the upcoming weeks.

"As I said, the work on the resolution is underway. Given the fact that we speak about a sanctions resolution, we will certainly need time for inter-agency coordination. … We will need time to dissect the text and the proposals," Zakharova said at a briefing.

The UN Security Council has banned North Korea from researching nuclear and ballistic missile technologies, but world powers fear that Pyongyang uses the satellite program as a cover-up to test its ballistic missiles and make them nuclear capable.

Previously, the United Nations adopted the Resolution 2270 that tightened sanctions against Pyongyang on March 2, after North Korea detonated a hydrogen bomb in January.

On September 9 Pyongyang claimed it conducted successful test of a nuclear warhead, which is believed to be the fifth and largest blast since Pyongyang began pursuing nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The UN Security Council condemned it as a repeated violation of its resolutions.

On October 14, North Korea reportedly carried out a failed test of the Musadan intermediate-range ballistic missile near the northwestern city of Kusong.