South Korean President Moon Jae-In called today for toughened sanctions against the North after its first successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, as he condemned Pyongyang for the "major provocation".
"That is a major threat and provocation. North Korea should stop immediately and that's why we will examine possibilities of ramping up sanctions," said Moon in Berlin before talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
"At the G20 summit, we will discuss this with various government representatives," he said, two days before the gathering of world leaders in the port city of Hamburg.
Moon is due to meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and US President Donald Trump tomorrow evening.
G20 host Merkel also spoke out in favour of punitive action against the North, saying that discussions between her and Moon later today "will focus on how best we can react, how we can keep up the pressure, how we can further ramp up sanctions".
"This is a concern that lies close to our hearts because we know from our own experience what a divided country means, and how happy we were when we were able to restore German unity in 1989," said Merkel.
The pro-Western and pro-Soviet states of West and East Germany reunified after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, becoming one of the most stable and prosperous democracies in the world.
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