The United States said Thursday that a committee under the U.N. Security Council was meeting to discuss expanding sanctions against North Korea following Pyongyang's recent missile launch. The committee, which held a first meeting on Wednesday, is expected to list further goods and entities seen as assisting North Korea's military programs which will be subject to sanctions, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said. “The international community has required that the North take certain actions and not take certain actions,” Wood told reporters. “The North has not listened to the will of the international community, and therefore it's going to have to face the consequences from its unwillingness to meet the international community's requirements.” Any new sanctions would be set by a committee of experts established under a 2006 Security Council resolution adopted after North Korea detonated a nuclear device. “There will be additional rounds of consultations, and then they will agree on a list of those goods and entities. That will be made public,” Wood said. North Korea on Tuesday quit a six-country denuclearization process, angered by a unanimous U.N. Security Council statement denouncing its missile launch. Pyongyang also ordered the expulsion of U.N. and U.S. nuclear monitors and vowed to revive its nuclear program. While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors departed earlier Thursday, Wood said the four-member U.S. team needed several days to prepare their exit. “They're there, making preparations to leave,” he said. Wood also said the United States has communicated with North Korea. “We have relayed our views to the North,” he said.
