Days after Vice President Mike Pence concluded his South Korea visit and warned North Korea not to test the resolve of the US military, Washington today said that ‘it don’t want a fight and Pyongyang shouldn’t play at this point’.
"We're not trying to pick a fight so don't try and give us one," Nikki Haley, the United States Permanent Representative to the United Nations, said here.
"The ball is in their court. They shouldn't try and play at this point," she added.
She said that members are working on a statement responding to the latest North Korean missile launch that failed.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters the United Nations fully backs efforts of all states trying to ensure that North Korea doesn't acquire the capacities that would become a threat, not only for the region but in a wider area of the world."
US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will chair a Security Council meeting on North Korea's nuclear program April 28.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Trump administration was considering putting North Korea back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, from which the Pyongyang regime was removed in 2008.
During President George W Bush's administration in 2008, the US removed North Korea from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which includes Iran, Syria and Sudan.
The end of North Korea's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism was the result of six-party talks among Russia, the US, Japan, China and the two Koreas to end Pyongyang's military nuclear programs.
North Korea back then committed to dismantling its Yongbyon nuclear power plant, but in 2009 launched a space rocket with technology that could be used for a long-range missile, prompting condemnation from the United Nations Security Council as well as the return to diplomatic isolation.
With Donald Trump in power since January, North Korea has returned to its tactic of missile provocations, while Washington has urged for China's help to bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table, although it has not ruled out the possibility of military action.
