The statement was made in their joint declaration, adopted following the two-day Eighth Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM8), which took place in Japan.
"The Leaders strongly called on North Korea to immediately take concrete actions in accordance with UNSC resolutions. The Leaders expressed their commitment to exerting continued pressure on North Korea, including by fully implementing and enforcing the UNSC resolutions," the declaration said, as quoted by the Japanese Foreign Ministry.
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The participants have also expressed their concerns over North Korean tactics to evade UN Security Council sanctions against Pyongyang.
"The Leaders expressed deep concerns about North Korea’s sanctions evading tactics including ‘ship-to-ship transfers’ and emphasized the need to accelerate their own efforts in accordance with the relevant UNSC resolutions, including by deregistering North Korean trading or fishing vessels currently flagged on their shipping registers," it continued.
Moreover, meeting’s participants stressed the importance to dismantle all weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons, as well as ballistic missiles and related facilities of North Korea.
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Pyongyang declared itself a nuclear power in 2005, and four years later withdrew from the six-party talks on North Korea's denuclearization. The country began carrying out numerous nuclear and ballistic missile tests, which led to a series of sanctions targeting Pyongyang's strategic exports and imports and money transfers imposed by the UN Security Council and a number of individual states. Pyongyang conducted its last nuclear test in September 2017.
The Pacific Islands Forum is the regional major political and economic policy organization, comprising Australia, the Cook Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Kiribati, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Palau, Papua New Guinea, the Marshall Islands, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.
