43 G77 Member Countries Including the US Call for Suspension of North Korea's Refined Oil Supply

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] The United States and 43 UN member countries urged the UN Security Council's North Korea Sanctions Committee to take immediate action by the end of the year to ban additional imports of refined petroleum products into North Korea. This is because North Korea has already exceeded the import limit of refined petroleum products set by the Security Council's North Korea sanctions resolutions through illegal activities. It is reported that the South Korean government has also joined this effort.

These member countries assessed that North Korea imported more than 1.6 million barrels of refined petroleum products through 56 instances of illegal activities from the beginning of this year until May. This exceeds North Korea's annual refined petroleum product import limit of 500,000 barrels under the Security Council's North Korea sanctions resolutions.

They emphasized that the Sanctions Committee should officially determine that North Korea's imports of refined petroleum products have exceeded the limit and notify UN member countries that all additional sales, supplies, or transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korea must be immediately halted by the end of this year.

Regarding North Korea's attempts to purchase additional refined petroleum products, they demanded that the Sanctions Committee urge UN member countries to strengthen immediate vigilance.

These 43 countries stressed, "If North Korea can blatantly evade international sanctions, there will be little incentive for it to engage in serious negotiations with the international community."

Previously, in June last year, the United States and more than 20 allied countries sent a document to the Sanctions Committee, stating that North Korea had exceeded the refined petroleum product limit and urging the committee to demand UN member countries to immediately halt additional supplies of refined products to North Korea. However, China and Russia had blocked this, saying more detailed information was needed regarding the scale of North Korea's refined petroleum product imports.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.