AFP – North Korea’s top diplomat yesterday criticised a new sanctions monitoring team led by the United States (US) as “unlawful and illegitimate”, warning countries involved in the entity would face a “dear price”.
The 11-member team was named earlier this month after Russia in March vetoed the renewal of a panel of United Nations (UN) experts monitoring international sanctions on North Korea, imposed for its banned nuclear and weapons programmes.
Since the Russian veto, South Korea and its allies have worked to apply different methods to monitor sanctions, leading to the formation of the new group – which includes the US and Japan.
Such a monitoring mechanism is “utterly unlawful and illegitimate”, North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency yesterday. “Its existence itself constitutes a denial of the UN Charter,” he said.
