Press release: Foreign Secretary in Brussels for talks with EU Foreign Ministers

We are going to be talking about sanctions against those who have been involved in a series of chemical weapons attacks in Syria and I’m very pleased to say that this is one of the things that the UK government has been talking about for many months. There’s been a series of chemical weapon attacks, the latest of which was the barbaric attack in Khan Shaykhun on April 4. What the Foreign Affairs Council will be agreeing today is that 16 named individuals will be sanctioned, their movements will be restricted, their assets will be frozen. They are military technical personnel, which shows the resolve of the UK and the rest of our friends in Europe in dealing with those who are responsible for chemical weapons attacks.

We will be also discussing the continuing crisis in North Korea. On the Testing of the ICBM that we saw recently, we remain absolutely determined to try to get the North Koreans to see sense and to continue to put pressure on the regime in Pyongyang. We think the best way to do that is to put pressure on the Chinese. We are seeing some progress there but a lot more to be done.