UN Security Council fails to extend sanctions panel for North Korea

South Korean Ambassador to the UN Hwang Joon-kook speaks during a UN Security Council meeting at the UN headquarters in New York on Thursday. [SCREEN CAPTURE]

The South Korean government expressed deep regret over the failure of the mandate of a UN expert panel monitoring the enforcement of sanctions against North Korea late Thursday.

On Thursday, the UN Security Council failed to adopt a new resolution meant to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts by another year as Russia vetoed the move. The panel’s mandate will now expire on April 30.

“The Korean government deeply regrets that a draft UN Security Council resolution to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts was not adopted on the morning of March 28 (New York time) due to the veto by the Russian Federation, despite the overwhelming support by the absolute majority of the Security Council members,” said the Foreign Ministry in a statement released Thursday.

“The Panel of Experts has carried out its role in monitoring the DPRK, which, in overt disregard of numerous Security Council resolutions, has continued to violate sanctions through various illicit activities such as nuclear and missile provocations, weapons exports, dispatch of workers overseas, cyber heists, and military cooperation with the Russian Federation, and advanced its nuclear and missile capabilities,” the statement continued. The DPRK refers to North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

The Foreign Ministry further called the veto from Russia “irresponsible” and stated that it “undermines the UN sanctions regime and the credibility of the Security Council.”

In the vote by 15 members of the Security Council Thursday, 13 countries voted in favor of the resolution, with China abstaining, before Russia vetoed the motion.

The panel on sanctions against North Korea has been extended annually since it launched in 2009 through the UN Security Council Resolution 1874. It has served as a key body that overseas sanctions on Pyongyang, and has published two reports each year on sanctions violations.

“Based on the overwhelming support demonstrated by this Security Council vote, the Government of the Republic of Korea will closely cooperate with the international community for the strict implementation of sanctions on the DPRK, while firmly upholding the existing UN sanctions regime against the DPRK to ensure that the DPRK stops violating Security Council resolutions and returns to the path of denuclearization,” the Foreign Ministry said.

The closing of the panel on sanctions against North Korea comes amidst the deepening military ties between Russia and North Korea.

North Korea has supplied around 6,700 shipping containers with munitions to Russia in exchange for food and other necessities recently, South Korea's Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said on Feb. 27. The United States State Department has also reported that Pyongyang has been supplying Moscow with more than 10,000 containers of munitions or munition-related materials since September last year.

South Korean Ambassador to the UN Hwang Joon-kook strongly criticized Russia’s exercise of the veto power, saying that there can be “no justification for disbanding the guardians” of the UN sanctions regime on North Korea.

“This is almost comparable to destroying a CCTV to avoid being caught red-handed," Hwang said. "Today, we witnessed yet another setback in the authority of this august body, as well as in the international non-proliferation regime. A permanent member of the Security Council and depository of the non-proliferation treaty completely abandoned its responsibility.”

"As Russia puts its blind self-centeredness over the council's collective responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security, the DPRK Panel of Experts, one of the council's most vibrant and significant subsidiary organs, has been forced to cease its work," Hwang said.

"Russia today vetoed the UNSC's routine renewal of a U.N. panel that monitors sanctions on the DPRK," White House National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby also said in an online briefing. "The reckless action today further undermines critical sanctions that the United States of the UNSC has imposed in response to North Korea's multiple nuclear tests and ballistic missile launches."

BY LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]