A top U.S. diplomat is urging the international community to impose stronger sanctions on North Korea in order to prompt Pyongyang to denuclearize.

U.S. Ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Glyn Davies said at the agency’s board meeting in Vienna on Tuesday that strong U.N. sanctions against Pyongyang are imperative to create a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.

Davies said the implementation of sanctions against the North is the best way to make it clear to Pyongyang that denuclearization and a return to the international community are the only choices it has.

Davies also stressed that the U.S. will not recognize the North as a nuclear state and expressed support for the six-way nuclear talks. He added that the North must signal that it is willing to commit to an irreversible process of complete and verifiable denuclearization.

Also during the IAEA gathering, the European Union denounced in the form of a statement the North’s efforts to enrich uranium and weaponize plutonium and also urged Pyongyang to fully scrap its nuclear program.

South Korea, Russia and Japan also issued similar statements at the IAEA meeting.