The United States and China reached an agreement Wednesday on imposing new U.N. sanctions on North Korea for its recent nuclear test and long range missile launch.

Details have yet to be released on the proposed measure.  The U.N. Security Council is set to hold closed consultations on the issue Thursday. The U.S.-China agreement is expected to be discussed during those talks.

The announcement came as China’s foreign minister Wang Yi visits Washington, where he met Tuesday with Secretary of State John Kerry and Wednesday with National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

U.S. National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said Rice and Wang were in agreement on a “strong and united” response to the North Korean tests, including new U.N. sanctions.

The agreement will likely represent a compromise between Washington’s support for crippling economic sanctions to pressure the Kim Jong Un to give up its nuclear weapons program and China’s emphasis on maintaining stability and resolving the conflict through dialogue.

However by uniting with Washington to support new international sanctions Beijing may be signaling that a conciliatory approach to Pyongyang has not been working and stronger measures are needed.

“China is going to take North Korea’s nuclear and missile threat far more seriously than it used to,” said Bong Young-shik, a national security analyst with the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 because of its multiple nuclear tests and rocket launches. In addition to a U.N. arms embargo, Pyongyang is banned from importing and exporting nuclear and missile technology and is not allowed to import luxury goods.

Measures target ministries, agencies, banks

South Korea’s Yonhap news agency is reporting the draft resolution will the target the North Korea’s Ministry of Atomic Energy Industry and its National Aerospace Development Agency (NADA), the body responsible for February’s rocket launch.

The secretive General Reconnaissance Bureau will also reportedly be blacklisted.  This secretive government organization has already been sanctioned by the United States for its suspected role in the 2014 cyber attack on Sony Pictures.

Banning the exports of North Korean coal and other minerals, the import of oil and restricting North Korean access to international ports were among the measures Washington had supported.

Washington also wanted to tighten restrictions on North Korean banks’ access to the international financial system.

On Wednesday, President Obama signed legislation imposing new U.S. sanctions against North Korea in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile tests.

The bill calls for imposing mandatory sanctions on anyone assisting Pyongyang over its nuclear and missile programs, cyber-attacks and human rights abuses.

The expanded sanctions are designed to deny North Korea the money it needs to develop miniaturized nuclear warheads and the long-range missiles needed to deliver them.

The measure also authorizes $50 million over five years to transmit radio broadcasts into North Korea and support humanitarian assistance programs.

Youmi Kim in Seoul and Marissa Melton in Washington contributed to this report.
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