America calls UN meeting on undermining N Korea sanctions

| | United Nations
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America calls UN meeting on undermining N Korea sanctions

Sunday, 16 September 2018 | AP | United Nations

The United States has called an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council for Monday in response to what it says are efforts by some countries “to undermine and obstruct” sanctions against North Korea.

The US Mission announced Friday evening that the meeting will “discuss the implementation and enforcement of UN sanctions on North Korea.”

The mission didn’t name any countries, but US Ambassador Nikki Haley accused Russia on Thursday of pressuring an independent panel of UN experts to alter a report on North Korea sanctions that included alleged violations “implicating Russian actors.” Haley said the panel should release the original report, which cited “a massive increase in illicit ship-to-ship transfers of petroleum products” for North Korea in violation of UN sanctions.

It said some products allegedly were off-loaded from Russian ships, which were identified in the report.

A summary of the experts report obtained in early August by The Associated Press also said North Korea has not stopped its nuclear and missile programs. And it said North Korea is violating sanctions by transferring coal at sea and flouting an arms embargo and financial sanctions.

The Security Council initially imposed sanctions on North Korea after its first nuclear test in 2006 and has made them tougher and tougher in response to further nuclear tests and an increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile program.

Haley said earlier this year that successively tough Security Council sanctions resolutions adopted unanimously had cut off all North Korean exports, 90 percent of its trade, and disbanded its pool of workers send abroad to earn hard currency.

Many diplomats and analysts credit the sanctions with helping promote the thaw in relations between North Korea and South Korea as well as the June meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at which they agreed to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

But in July, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused North Korea of “illegally smuggling” in refined petroleum products beyond the annual quota of 5,00,000 barrels allowed under U.N. Sanctions.

US documents sent to the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea and obtained by AP cited 89 instances between Jan 1 and May 30 in which North Korean tankers likely delivered refined products “illicitly procured” via transfers from other ships at sea.

The US said Russia and China both informed the sanctions committee that they were supplying refined products to North Korea. China, which is North Korea’s closest ally, is responsible for more than 90 percent of the isolated country’s trade.

Pompeo said North Korea is also evading sanctions by smuggling coal by sea and across borders, by using cyber thefts and other criminal activities, and by keeping workers in some countries that he didn’t name.

 

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