Russia ends UN monitoring of sanctions against North Korea

“What Russia did today undermines peace and security in the world, all to promote a corrupt exchange that Moscow has sealed” with Pyongyang, particularly on weapons, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller responded. For its part, through a press release from South Korea’s foreign ministry, Seoul described Russia’s veto as an “irresponsible decision”.

North Korea has been subject to UN Security Council sanctions linked to its nuclear program since 2006, reinforced several times in 2016 and 2017. But since 2019, Russia and China have been demanding relief from this, particularly highlighting the humanitarian situation of the North Korean population. Restrictions, which have no end date.

After failing to win their case, the Russians targeted the Committee of Experts responsible for monitoring the application of these measures, a committee whose reports it refers to. Russia on Thursday vetoed a draft resolution extending the committee’s mandate for a year, despite several postponements of a vote to approve the talks. The text received 13 votes in favor, with China abstaining.

Russian Ambassador Vasily Nebenzia justified the veto by speculating that, under current conditions, the committee no longer had any reason to exist, focusing on “intersectional questions not relevant to the problems of the peninsula”.

It instead proposed to the Council a reassessment of the embargo regime. “If there was an agreement for annual renewal of sanctions, the mandate of the expert committee would make sense,” he explained. A proposal supported by China.

“Confession of Guilt”

In its latest 600-page report from early March, the Committee of Experts underlined that North Korea continues to “breach Security Council sanctions”, particularly by developing its nuclear program, launching ballistic missiles, violating maritime and oil embargoes. Import Limits.

The committee also claimed to have begun investigating “information” reporting North Korea’s export of “conventional weapons and ammunition” to Russia, in particular, in violation of sanctions. “This veto is not a sign of concern for the population of North Korea or for the effectiveness of sanctions. This is about Russia gaining the freedom to violate sanctions in search of weapons to be used against Ukraine,” condemned British Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward.

This veto “is in effect 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,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba commented on X.

“Russia has now used its veto to end the two expert committees, due to the development of its military ties with these governments,” condemned the joint statement, referring to the United States, France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom. For the gardener.

Last August, in a show of its support for Bamako, Russia blocked a resolution that would have extended the mandate of experts who delivered findings damaging to the Malian junta and its “foreign security partners”.