New York, Dhu-AlQa'dah 14, 1438, August 06, 2017, SPA -- The UN Security Council voted unanimously on Saturday in New York to impose its toughest sanctions so far on North Korea. The 15-member council agreed to impose a new set of sanctions against Pyongyang that are expected to cut one-third of North Korea's export revenues in response to two intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests in July. The sanctions aim to hit the country's exports and hard currency by stepping up the existing restrictions on coal, iron and iron ore exports to a full ban and prohibiting exports of lead, lead ore and seafood. US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley called the measures "the most stringent set of sanctions on any country in a generation." "These sanctions will cut deep and in doing so will give the North Korean leadership a taste of the deprivation they have chosen to inflict on the North Korean people," Haley told the Security Council after the vote. The intensified sanctions could cut roughly 1 billion dollars from the country's 3 billion in annual export revenue, Haley said in a statement. Coal revenues accounted for around 40 per cent of North Korea's export earnings in 2016, at a value of almost 1.2 billion dollars, according to the US Energy Administration. The sanctions also freeze the number of work authorizations for North Korean labourers working abroad, blacklist nine individuals and impose assets freezes on four companies. In addition, they block the establishment or expansion of joint ventures with North Korean entities or individuals. The resolution expresses regret at North Korea's "massive diversion of its scarce resources toward its development of nuclear weapons and a number of expensive ballistic missile programmes." It also calls for the resumption of the "six-party talks" - an international forum on the de-nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula made up of the Koreas, China, the US, Japan and Russia. The group last convened in 2008. On Saturday in New York, Russia's UN ambassador Vassily Nebenzia expressed concerns that the US scaling up its THAAD anti-missile system and a recent 10-hour mission by aircraft carriers to the Korean Peninsula could pose further threats to security in the region. "Military misadventures are liable to cause a disaster for regional and global stability," Nebenzia told the Security Council following the vote. He said he hoped comments by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson Wednesday that the US is not seeking regime change or to accelerate reunification of North and South Korea, or an excuse to send the US military into the region, were sincere. Russia and China have advocated a freeze-for-freeze approach, whereby the US and South Korea would halt their military exercises and North Korea would do the same. When asked about the proposal, Haley told reporters that US-South Korean military exercises are transparent and have been going on for 40 years and that it is now up to North Korea to stop its activity before the six-party talks can resume. This is the eighth Security Council resolution to target Pyongyang for its missile tests since 2006, with the last round of strengthened sanctions passed in June. --SPA 02:04 LOCAL TIME 23:04 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w460418