G20: UK would back tighter sanctions on North Korea, Theresa May says
The PM has arrived in Germany for a G20 meeting dominated by the North Korea crisis and fraught with tensions among world leaders.
Friday 7 July 2017 10:12, UK
The G20 summit in Hamburg gets under way with an already fractious gathering of world leaders overshadowed by the threat of military escalation with North Korea.
Prime Minister Theresa May, arriving in Germany last night, said the UK "absolutely condemns the action that North Korea has taken" adding that "what we need to see is China which can exercise influence on North Korea playing a greater role in doing that".
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The PM, at her second G20 summit, said that "if there are proposals to tighten and extend sanctions, then we support that".
Pyongyang said this week that it had tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), a significant step in its nuclear ambitions.
Speaking to reporters on the RAF Voyager plane, the PM denied that Britain was now losing influence on the world stage. She said it was a "truly confident" Britain that would emerge after leaving the European Union and in the run-up to it.
Asked if other world leaders would perceive her as weaker after the General Election, Mrs May said: "I'm sitting around table contributing on behalf of UK. Crucially on counter-terrorism it's the UK leading the way in wanting to deal with extremism online, and that the internet is not a safe space for terrorists.
"It's the UK already doing work with our financial sector on the issues of financing of terrorism and we'll be taking that to the world stage."
The PM will tell G20 leaders at the first session this morning that in the wake of a spate of Islamic State-linked terror attacks, there needs to be a crackdown on terror financing, in particular identifying "suspicious small flows of money used to support terrorist activity".
The PM will hold bilateral meetings with US President Donald Trump and Indian PM Narendra Modi on Saturday, and Chinese President Xi Jinping today.
The G20, originally a forum to prevent a slide into protectionism and trade wars in the aftermath of the financial crisis a decade ago, is expected to be one of the most fractious ever.
There are tensions over trade, migration and climate change, after Mr Trump announced the US would pull out of the Paris Climate Change Accord.
Asked whether she will challenge the US President on climate change, not identified ahead of the summit by Number 10 as one of its four top summit priorities, the PM said: "I've already made our position clear to President Trump. We remain in the Paris Agreement, we continue to believe the Paris Agreement is something we should all be supporting.
"Obviously there will be a discussion on the US position here at the G20, but I and others around the table will be encouraging President Trump to look at ways in which the US can come back into the Paris Agreement."