South Korea says North Korea sanctions will remain, as Kim Jong Un wraps up China visit

SEOUL – Sanctions against North Korea will remain in effect until the communist state completely scraps its nuclear program, a senior South Korean official said Wednesday, as President Moon Jae-in urged North Korea to present a plan with concrete steps toward denuclearization.

It came as the North's leader, Kim Jong Un, wrapped up a two-day visit to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping and discuss the outcome of his landmark summit in Singapore with President Donald Trump last week.

Kim’s limousine and motorcade left the North Korean embassy for Beijing's airport on Wednesday afternoon, watched by gawking pedestrians.

It was Kim's third trip to China this year as he keeps  close contact with his main ally. China accounts for around 90 percent of North Korea’s trade and has traditionally been its primary diplomatic conduit to the outside world.

Kim made his first foreign trip since coming to power in 2011 in March, when he visited Beijing. He also visited the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian in May.

South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha told reporters Wednesday that Seoul expected “to see concrete action by North Korea to live up to its complete denuclearization commitment” in exchange for security guarantees and joint efforts to establish lasting peace on the Korean Peninsula.

“Meanwhile, sanctions will remain in place until we are assured that complete denuclearization has been achieved,” she said.

At the June 12 summit with Trump, Kim pledged the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula," but the agreement did not mention inspections or a verification process to make sure North Korea follows through.

A timeline for carrying out the process also remains unclear. While in Singapore, Trump also suspended joint military exercises with South Korea, a goal long pursued by China and North Korea.

More: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un starts two-day visit to China

Related: A week later, President Trump is still defending North Korea agreement

Kim's visit to Beijing came amid strained economic relations between China and the U.S. as Trump threatened to slap new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods earlier this week.

Last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said relief from sanctions would come only after complete denuclearization, and that he expected to travel to Pyongyang for discussions “before too terribly long.”

Kang said a plan of action would emerge in follow-up negotiations between Pompeo and North Korean officials.

“We expect the discussions and the agreements and the implementation of those agreements to take place sooner rather than later,” she said.

Moon urged his northern neighbor to provide more detail on its goals Wednesday.

“It’s necessary for North Korea to present far more concrete denuclearization plans, and I think it’s necessary for the United States to swiftly reciprocate by coming up with comprehensive measures,” Moon told Russian media, ahead of a trip to Moscow.

North Korea remains under strict sanctions imposed last August by the United Nations Security Council that ban exports of coal, iron, lead and seafood – which account for around $1 billion of the country’s annual $3 billion in trade.

The U.S., South Korea, Japan and the European Union have also imposed their own additional sanctions on Pyongyang over its nuclear and ballistic missile program.

North Korea has indicated that it wants a phased approach in dismantling its nuclear weapons program. The country's state-run media characterized the vaguely worded agreement with Trump as setting in motion a “step-by-step” process.

China has suggested that the U.N. Security Council could consider easing sanctions if Pyongyang makes progress in diplomatic relations and denuclearization. It was not clear if Kim and Xi discussed the prospect of easing the U.N. sanctions during their talks in Beijing.

Building on the diplomatic momentum from the Singapore summit, South Korea and the U.S. announced Tuesday that joint military drills slated for August had been officially called off. South Korea also announced on Wednesday that it was nixing its own simulation-based military drills, which had been slated for next week.

Foreign Minister Kang called the cancellations “good-faith measures,” but said the exercises could be reinstated if North Korea failed to live up to its agreements.

"They could quickly come back should we see the dialogue momentum losing speed or North Korea not living up to its denuclearization commitment," she said.

WPXI