2024-03-28 18:55:39
Russia, accused by the West of importing weapons from North Korea, imposed on Thursday the end of the UN sanctions monitoring system against Pyongyang and its nuclear program. Many Security Council members decried the decision.
Russia vetoed a draft resolution extending for a year the mandate of the committee of experts responsible for monitoring these sanctions, a resolution which received 13 votes in favor. China abstained.
“What Russia did today undermines peace and security in the world, all to promote a flawed barter that Moscow has sealed” with Pyongyang, on arms in particular, reacted Matthew Miller, the -spokesperson for the US State Department.
Moscow wants annual reassessment
Since 2006, North Korea has been subject to Security Council sanctions linked in particular to its nuclear program, sanctions reinforced several times in 2016 and 2017. Since 2019, Russia and China have called on the Council for relief from these sanctions which do not have an end date.
In this context, Russia considers that the committee of experts, whose reports refer to this matter, no longer has any reason to exist, focusing on “uninteresting questions not commensurate with the problems facing the peninsula”.
She therefore proposed to the Council an annual reassessment of the sanctions. “If there was an agreement for an annual renewal of sanctions, the mandate of the committee of experts would make sense,” said Russian Ambassador Vassili Nebenzia.
“Admission of Guilt”
In its last report at the beginning of March, the committee of experts stressed that North Korea continued to “flout the Security Council sanctions”, in particular by developing its nuclear program, launching ballistic missiles, violating maritime sanctions and limits on oil imports.
He also indicated that he had started to investigate “information coming from member states on the supply by North Korea of conventional weapons and munitions” to other states in violation of sanctions, in particular to Russia for his war in Ukraine.
“This veto is not a sign of concern for the North Korean population or for the effectiveness of sanctions. It is about Russia gaining the freedom to violate sanctions in search of weapons to use against the Ukraine,” denounced British Ambassador Barbara Woodward.
This veto “is in fact an admission of guilt. Moscow no longer hides its military cooperation with North Korea (…) as well as the use of North Korean weapons in the war against Ukraine”, commented on X Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
“Committee more important than ever”
“In view of the repeated attempts (by North Korea) to undermine international peace and security, the work of the committee is more important than ever,” insisted just before the vote ten members of the Council (United States, France, United Kingdom, South Korea, Japan, Malta, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Ecuador, Switzerland).
“There can be no justification for the disappearance of the guardians of the sanctions regime,” criticized South Korean Ambassador Joonkook Hwang. “It’s like destroying surveillance cameras to prevent being caught red-handed.”
China, while abstaining, supported Russian demands for sanctions reassessment. “Sanctions should not be set in stone or unlimited,” said Deputy Ambassador Geng Shuang, saying they had “exacerbated tensions” in the peninsula and had a “negative” impact on the humanitarian situation.
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