Five countries strongly condemn Russia for closing expert group on sanctions against North Korea
Russia's veto will lead to dissolution of the UN panel of experts to oversee compliance with sanctions
The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Japan and South Korea have issued a joint statement on Russia's veto, which will lead to the dissolution of the UN panel of experts overseeing the implementation of sanctions against North Korea.
"Russia's veto is nothing more than an attempt to silence independent, objective investigations into violations of Security Council resolutions by both North Korea and Russia itself, which seeks military support from the DPRK as it wages its illegal, aggressive war against Ukraine," the statement from the US Mission to the UN reads.
"Russia has decided to silence a group of experts from the DPRK who reported on violations of Security Council resolutions by Moscow itself. [...] Now it will be more difficult for UN member states to fight in their jurisdictions against the DPRK's illegal desire to acquire weapons of mass destruction and circumvent sanctions. Russia is responsible for this," the five countries said.
Despite these circumstances, the statement said, all previously adopted Security Council resolutions and all previously imposed sanctions remain in force, and all countries are obliged to comply with them.
As reported, Russia used its veto power in the UN Security Council during the vote to extend the mandate of the group of experts monitoring compliance with sanctions against North Korea. This will lead to the termination of the expert group's activities, although the sanctions regime itself has not been formally lifted.
Russia was the only country in the Security Council to vote against the decision. Russia's permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, criticised the expert group for "playing along with Western approaches, reprinting biased information, analysing newspaper headlines and low-quality images" and said that Moscow has long been in favour of revising the sanctions regime.
In recent months, Western countries and Ukraine have claimed that North Korea has been supplying Russia with large volumes of munitions, such as artillery shells and ballistic missiles.
It also became known that the United States and South Korea have set up a working group to block oil supplies from Russia to the DPRK.
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