Yonhap interviews Ed Royce, on H.R. 1771

The day after the North Korea Sanctions Enforcement Act passed the House, Royce gave an interview to Yonhap:

“We have tried every approach to engage North Korea and the only time that we’ve ever really had their attention was when we’ve used some leverage on the regime itself,” Royce said in the interview in his office shortly after the bill’s passage on Monday, referring to the BDA sanctions. [….]

Royce said that chances of the bill passing through the Senate are “very good.”

“There’s a lot of bipartisan support for this legislation,” he said. “I know the feelings of many of the senators I’ve talked with. The senators feel as we feel that this is a step that we need to take.”

But the chairman stressed the bill won’t affect humanitarian aid to the North.

“What we are looking at doing is — instead of cutting off the aid to the regime itself — cutting off the institutions that the regime uses, not only to consolidate its power over the people of North Korea and violate their rights but also the institutions they use to build up, continue to build up their nuclear weapons program and their ICBM program,” he said. [Yonhap]

I’m interviewed further down in the piece.