North Korea hit by more UN sanctions
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THE UN Security Council has imposed new sanctions on North Korea aimed at cutting the country’s annual export revenue by a quarter in response to Pyongyang’s fifth and largest nuclear test in September.
The 15-member council unanimously adopted a resolution to slash North Korea’s biggest export, coal, by about 60 percent with an annual sales cap of US$400.9 million, or 7.5 million tons, whichever is lower.
The US-drafted resolution also bans North Korean copper, nickel, silver and zinc exports — and the sale of statues. Pyongyang is famous for building huge, socialist-style statues which it exports mainly to African countries.
North Korea’s foreign ministry said yesterday that it rejected the resolution, saying it denied its sovereignty and right to survival.
In a statement it said it will be taking stronger self-defense measures in response to the resolution, the country’s KCNA state news agency said.
The US was realistic about what the new sanctions on North Korea will achieve, US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told the council after the vote.
“No resolution in New York will likely, tomorrow, persuade Pyongyang to cease its relentless pursuit of nuclear weapons. But this resolution imposes unprecedented costs on the DPRK regime for defying this council’s demands,” she said.
“In total, this resolution will slash by at least US$800 million per year the hard currency that the DPRK has to fund its prohibited weapons programs, which constitutes a full 25 percent of the DPRK’s entire export revenues.”
That US$800 million is 6.5 times the amount the World Food Program said it needed in 2016 to fund its North Korea operations, or 1.2 million tons of rice at market prices.
North Korea needs 5.2 million tons of rice annually to meet its stated target of providing people with 573g of rice a day.
A South Korean foreign ministry spokesman said South Korea welcomed the new resolution and would pursue additional unilateral sanctions against North Korea with the US and Japan.
North Korea has been under UN sanctions since 2006 over its nuclear and ballistic missile tests. It conducted its most recent nuclear test on September 9.
“Sanctions are only as effective as their implementation,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the council. “It is incumbent on all member states of the United Nations to make every effort to ensure that these sanctions are fully implemented.”
While China said it was opposed to North Korea’s nuclear tests, UN Ambassador Liu Jieyi accused the US and South Korea of intensifying confrontation with North Korea by scaling up military exercises and presence. He described the planned US deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense anti-missile system in South Korea as “neither conducive to the realization of the goal of denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula nor helpful to the maintenance of peace and stability on the peninsula.”
The UN resolution blacklisted 11 more individuals, including former ambassadors to Egypt and Myanmar, and 10 entities, subjecting them to a global travel ban and asset freeze for ties to North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.
It calls on UN states to reduce the number of staff at North Korea’s foreign missions and requires countries to limit the number of bank accounts to one per North Korean diplomatic mission.
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