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South Korea calls North 'self-contradictory,' 'illogical' after criticism of sanctions monitoring group

Published: 24 Feb. 2025, 19:01 Updated: 24 Feb. 2025, 19:11

SEO JI-EUN
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U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell, fifth from left, First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong-kyun, center, and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Masataka Okano, seventh from left, pose for a photo with the ambassadors of participating countries on a multilateral sanctions monitoring team as they announce its launch in a press conference at the Foreign Ministry in Seoul on Oct. 16, 2024. [KIM KYEONG-ROK]

South Korea called the North "self-contradictory" and "illogical" after Pyongyang threatened "resolute actions" in response to a Seoul-led sanctions monitoring group that met last week in Washington.

The chief of the External Policy Office of North Korea's Foreign Ministry, in a statement released through the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), dismissed the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) as "an illegal and criminal ghost group in terms of its name and purpose" and threatened to "strongly counter them with resolute actions."

The statement came after the MSMT, launched in October by South Korea and 10 other countries, officially began its activities and urged global cooperation at the inaugural steering committee meeting on Feb. 19 in Washington.

"It can never bring back the miserable fate of the worn-out sanctions mechanism against the DPRK," the statement read, adding that the more the international community clings to sanctions, "the more it feels inconvenience, not us."

DPRK is the acronym of North Korea's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The statement further emphasized that North Korea "has no sanctions to be canceled or to be added," stating that negotiating for sanctions relief is "not a matter of concern" for the regime.

This stance has been North Korea’s longstanding position since the collapse of the 2019 Hanoi summit, where negotiations to exchange sanctions relief for denuclearization fell apart.

A South Korean Foreign Ministry official responded to the statement as Seoul reaffirmed its commitment to actively participating in MSMT efforts and strengthening international cooperation to ensure the full implementation of UN sanctions.

"It is self-contradictory and illogical that North Korea — which continues to blatantly violate UN Security Council resolutions and international law without compunction — to label the voluntary efforts of UN member states to uphold these resolutions as illegal or illegitimate," the official said Monday.

North Korea’s Foreign Minister Choe Son-hui had personally condemned the MSMT’s establishment when it was first launched in October last year. However, this time, a lower-ranking official from the External Policy Office issued the statement, signaling a toned-down response from Pyongyang.

“Recently, North Korea's defense and foreign ministries have been issuing statements regarding U.S. strategic asset deployments, joint military drills and trilateral denuclearization efforts with Kim Jong-un and Kim Yo-jong staying out of direct statements," Yang Moo-jin, president of the University of North Korean Studies, said. "This suggests Pyongyang is adjusting its rhetoric."

Meanwhile, U.S. Special Presidential Envoy Richard Grenell on Feb. 21 stressed the importance of resuming dialogue, signaling that Washington remains open to engagement while maintaining its firm stance on sanctions.

"[The statement] may be a veiled indication that Pyongyang still considers sanctions relief a precondition for U.S.-North Korea talks," Yang added.

BY SEO JI-EUN [[email protected]]