According to state media KCNA, North Korea’s UN envoy Ambassador Kim Song dismissed the effectiveness of efforts led by the US and other Western nations to establish new bodies for monitoring sanctions on North Korea. Kim’s statement came in response to a joint declaration issued by the US and its allies, advocating for the continuation of a UN panel of experts tasked with overseeing longstanding sanctions against Pyongyang due to its nuclear weapons and missile activities.
Earlier this year, Russia blocked the annual renewal of the panel, prompting accusations from the US-led coalition that North Korea had been transferring weapons to Russia for involvement in the conflict in Ukraine. Kim asserted that while hostile forces might attempt to establish additional expert panels in the future, such endeavors were doomed to fail over time.
The report cited KCNA quoting Kim as saying, “The hostile forces may set up the second and third expert panels in the future but they are all bound to meet self-destruction with the passage of time.”
In a related development, US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield visited the Demilitarized Zone, the heavily fortified border separating North and South Korea. She used the opportunity to urge Russia and China to refrain from incentivizing North Korea’s provocative actions.
This visit followed Russia’s rejection of the annual renewal of the multinational panel of experts responsible for monitoring UN sanctions aimed at curtailing North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs, a mechanism that has been in place for the past 15 years.
