– Pyongyang denigrates sanctions monitoring committees
North Korea has said any new sanctions monitoring committee is doomed to failure.
Published today at 6:45 a.m.
Kim Jong Un.
AFP
Efforts to establish a new committee of experts to monitor the implementation of international sanctions against North Korea are doomed to failure, its ambassador to the UN said in comments reported by a media outlet. Status Sunday.
“Hostile forces may install (a) second and (a) third expert committee in the future but they are all destined to experience self-destruction,” Ambassador Kim Song said in an English-language statement released by the official KCNA news agency.
In March, Russia vetoed a draft resolution in the UN Security Council extending for one year the mandate of the committee of experts monitoring the implementation of UN sanctions against Pyongyang. This dissolution is a “historic judgment against an illegal and conspiratorial organization (…) with a view to eliminating the right to the existence of a sovereign state”, according to Kim Song.
North Korea has been subject to UN Security Council sanctions linked to its nuclear program since 2006, reinforced several times in 2016 and 2017. Since 2019, Russia and China, notably highlighting the humanitarian situation in North Korea, are demanding relief from these sanctions, which have no end date. Having failed to win its case, Moscow targeted the committee of experts responsible for monitoring the application of these measures, a committee whose reports refer to.
Important to ensure the application of sanctions, according to the United States
Seoul and Washington say Pyongyang is sending weapons to Russia, possibly in exchange for technical help for its spy satellite program. During a visit to South Korea in April, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Linda Thomas-Greenfield stressed the importance of ensuring sanctions are enforced on North Korea.
According to the ambassador, Washington is working with Seoul, Tokyo and other capitals to find “creative ways” to resume monitoring of sanctions. In 2023, North Korea conducted a record number of missile tests despite sanctions. The previous year, Pyongyang declared its status as an “irreversible” nuclear power.
AFP
Did you find an error? Please report it to us.
