Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent discussions he has had with his counterparts in EU member states on the potential imposition of new EU sanctions on North Korea.

I discussed the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) with my European counterparts at the EU Foreign Ministers meeting in Tallinn on 7-8 September. A peaceful solution to this crisis requires a concerted international effort to maximise political and economic pressure on the leadership in Pyongyang and bring the DPRK back to the negotiating table. The EU needs to play its part by stepping up this pressure.