North Korea will face the price of instability and economic hardship for its continued provocations in defiance of the international community, the top South Korean diplomat said Monday as the United Nations Security Council is set to vote on a new sanctions resolution over its recent nuclear test.

"North Korea is on a reckless path," Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said in a press conference with foreign correspondents in Seoul.

"By all measures, the impact of the sixth test has been many times stronger and wider than the fifth conducted in September last year," Kang said. "The price of its continued provocations in blatant disregard of the peace-loving members of the international community will be instability and economic hardship."
 

On Monday afternoon (New York time), the UNSC is set to vote on a fresh resolution, which seeks to drain crude oil and other energy supplies to North Korea while banning the overseas sales of North Korean textile, one of its main foreign currency sources.

"Of course what will make it into final text and adopted is yet to be seen. But we have been clear ... that oil has to be included as an element of sanctions," Kang also said. "I believe that whatever makes into the final text and adopted by consensus will hopefully have significant consequences in terms of greater economic pressure on North Korea," she added.

The North Korean nuclear issue has remained "the biggest challenges on our foreign affairs and security front" since the Moon Jae-in government took office in May and it "most likely will continue to be so for many years to come," according to the top diplomat.

The government will continue to work toward a peaceful achievement of the complete denuclearization of North Korea with "complete confidence" in the South Korea-US combined defense posture and deterrence capabilities, she noted.

Kang dismissed the possibility of reintroducing American tactical nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula to deter North Korean security threats. The US withdrew them in 1991.

"We are currently not reviewing this at the government level nor are we negotiating with the United States," she said. (Yonhap)