Security Council members delay vote on possible North Korea sanctions

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council's five permanent members and Japan agreed Monday to postpone a vote on possible sanctions against North Korea in response to a missile test that rattled the region last week.

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, the current council president, said there would be no vote Monday. China's U.N. ambassador said that council members have agreed to continue discussions on the Tokyo-sponsored resolution.

Ambassador Wang Guangya told reporters after a meeting with envoys from Russia, the United States, Britain, France and Japan that the resolution would have to be altered for the council to approve it.

"If they wish to have a resolution, they should have a modified one, not this one," he said.

China's consideration of any resolution was considered significant, since Wang had been pressing for a weaker Security Council statement, which would not be legally binding.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said Washington would look at any Chinese suggestions for changes, and the council would reevaluate "on a daily basis" whether to proceed with a vote.

The Kyodo News agency, citing unidentified Japanese officials, reported that Japan and the United States were seeking a renewed moratorium by North Korea on missile testing, and its unconditional return to six-party talks on its nuclear program, in exchange for no sanctions.

Bolton said the United States wants North Korea to return to the talks and resume the moratorium on missile testing, among other measures. But he refused to say whether the United States would agree to drop sanctions if North Korea did so.

The Japanese draft under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which allows military enforcement, demands that North Korea immediately stop developing, testing, deploying and selling ballistic missiles.

It also bans all U.N. member states from acquiring North Korean missiles or weapons of mass destruction — or the parts or technology to produce them — and orders all countries to take steps to prevent any material, technology or money for missile or weapons programs from reaching the North.

The draft resolution also urges North Korea to return immediately to the talks on its nuclear program with the United States, Japan, South Korea, China and Russia. The talks have been stalled since September.