N. Korea says new US sanctions won't be new, effective

North Korea said on Tuesday a US move to impose additional sanctions against it is nothing new and will surely fail.

"The US House of Representatives is mulling passing a 'bill on escalating sanctions with respect to transactions relating to North Korea'," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said in a signed commentary.

"The bill, the keynote of which is to seek the sinister intention of totally excluding the DPRK from the international financial system, is nothing new as it is part of a series of persistent US moves to stifle it through sanctions," it added, referring to North Korea by its official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The KCNA claimed the proposed new US sanctions only marked a repeat of Washington's frustrated attempt to topple its communist regime.

"The US modified and supplemented the 'North Korea Sanctions and Policy Enhancement Act of 2016' of the Obama administration which admitted a total failure in its DPRK policy. This fact reveals that the US is resorting to the last expedient," it said.

It also noted the US had insisted its sanctions on the North would have a significant impact on the impoverished nation within six months.

But within that timetable, "the DPRK succeeded in the test-fire of a ground-to-ground medium to long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-10, the test-fire of an SLBM (submarine-launched ballistic missile), the ground jet test of a new type of high-thrust engine of a carrier rocket for the geo-stationary satellite and an explosion test of a nuclear warhead to startle the world and demonstrate the might of the nuclear power all over the world," it said.

"The DPRK is able to prosper in the great spirit of self-reliance and self-development despite any sanctions and pressure as long as there are its territory, the Workers' Party of Korea and the DPRK government, water and air in this land. It is the faith and will of the service personnel and people of the DPRK," it added. (Yonhap)