U.S. ambassador to UN to visit South Korea, Japan as sanctions panel sunsets

Diplomacy

Published: 09 Apr. 2024, 16:00 Updated: 14 Apr. 2024, 14:05

U.S. ambassador to UN to visit South Korea, Japan as sanctions panel sunsets

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield speaks during a UN Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters in New York on March 22, 2024. [AFP/YONHAP]

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield will visit South Korea and Japan from April 14 to 20, the U.S. mission to the UN said on Monday.

This trip signals that the top U.S. diplomat to the UN is preparing countermeasures as the UN Security Council panel of experts monitoring sanctions against North Korea expires on April 30.

In a statement, the U.S. mission to the UN said that in both countries, Thomas-Greenfield "will discuss next steps to ensure a continuation of independent and accurate reporting of the DPRK’s ongoing weapons proliferation and sanctions evasion activities, following Russia’s veto and China’s abstention of a UN Security Council resolution that would have renewed the mandate of the 1718 Committee Panel of Experts.”

The DPRK stands for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

With the panel of experts set to disappear following a Security Council motion vetoed by Russia on March 28, Thomas-Greenfield will use her trip to develop a trilateral response between South Korea, the United States and Japan. In this regard, South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Tae-yul said last Friday that “a new monitoring mechanism to replace the panel of experts is being planned with our allies.”

The critical question is whether the new mechanism will be effective without the participation of China and Russia, which are widely believed to be using loopholes in the sanctions regime against North Korea.

In announcing Thomas-Greenfield's trip, the United States emphasized the independence and accuracy of the new monitoring mechanism that will replace the panel.

The panel of experts comprises figures from the five permanent members of the Security Council — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia — and eight other countries, including South Korea, Japan and Singapore. While it has limitations, with China and Russia diluting the clarity of the panels’ reports, it has also brought countries under scrutiny into the panel’s framework and held them directly accountable for evasive activities.

“The panel of experts cannot be completely replaced, but we can do things like making separate reports,” said a diplomatic source.

The source said efforts would be made to actively utilize the know-how accumulated by member states while monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea and consolidate intelligence-gathering capabilities, adding that experts who served on the panel would also be brought together as advisors.

“The fact is that the panel of experts that was in charge of fact-finding regarding sanctions violations is set to disappear, but the UN’s sanctions enforcement function is not dead — so there are enough ways to replace it, even if it is not at the UN level,” said Kim Hyun-wook, a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy.

“We need to demonstrate the power of cooperation and solidarity among democratic countries, not only in terms of the will to enforce sanctions but also in terms of North Korean human rights issues, including at the upcoming summit between South Korea, the United States and Japan in July.”

Thomas-Greenfield’s visit to South Korea is her first since her appointment as ambassador to the UN on Jan. 20, 2021. She had previously planned to visit South Korea in December 2021 to attend the UN Peacekeeping Operations minister’s meeting in Seoul, but the meeting was canceled due to the outbreak of Covid-19.

The visit is also the first by a U.S. ambassador to the UN in eight years since former ambassador Samantha Power visited in October 2016. The U.S. ambassador to the UN is a cabinet-level position and a White House National Security Council member, and a visit by Thomas-Greenfield carries significant weight.

Because of the breadth and importance of the United States’ work at the UN, the ambassador rarely travels overseas, making Thomas-Greenfield’s week-long trip to Seoul and Tokyo unusual. The purpose of the trip appears to emphasize the gravity of the situation regarding the panel’s expiration and to send a warning not only to North Korea but also to China and Russia for facilitating or condoning sanctions violations.

Thomas-Greenfield will visit North Korea-related sites and meet with senior government officials during her trip. In South Korea, she will visit the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and meet with young North Korean defectors and students at Ewha Womans University. In Japan, She plans to meet with the families of those abducted by North Korea and visit Nagasaki.

Meanwhile, the UN General Assembly will convene on Thursday and ask Russia to explain why it vetoed the resolution to extend the panel’s term.

Since 2022, the UN has required permanent members of the Security Council to explain their vetoes to a later session of the General Assembly. Russia thus faces the diplomatic burden of publicly explaining why it toppled a watchtower on sanctions enforcement that had stood for the past 15 years.

BY PARK HYUN-JU, LIM JEONG-WON [lim.jeongwon@joongang.co.kr]