Russia Offers to Mediate as US Sanctions North Korean Missile Experts

Washington/Moscow: The US announced sanctions on two of North Korea's most prominent officials behind its ballistic missile program on Tuesday, while Russia reiterated an offer to mediate to ease tension between Washington and Pyongyang.

The new US steps were the latest in a campaign aimed at forcing North Korea - which has defied years of multilateral and bilateral sanctions - to abandon a weapons program aimed at developing nuclear-tipped missile s capable of hitting the US.

"Treasury is targeting leaders of North Korea's



ballistic missile programs, as part of our maximum pressure campaign to isolate (North Korea) and achieve a fully denuclearised Korean Peninsula," treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

The move followed new UN sanctions announced last Friday in response to North Korea's November 29 test of an ICBM that Pyongyang said put all of the US mainland within range of its nuclear weapons. Those sanctions sought to further limit North Korea's access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and its earnings from workers abroad.