North Korea Slams Sanctions Monitoring Team: "Sanctions Won't Work... Strategic Failure"

North Korea hit back against recent additional sanctions implemented by some member states of the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT)—an international cooperative body monitoring violations of sanctions against North Korea—and the European Union (EU), calling them "a strategic failure that will not work on us."

In a statement issued today (October 31), a spokesperson for North Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs addressed the joint statement by the MSMT and the EU urging the implementation of UN Security Council sanctions resolutions against North Korea, as well as unilateral sanctions imposed by some member states, calling them "despicable conspiratorial schemes by the United States and its vassal forces to justify their hostile policy." The spokesperson added, "We brand this as a grave violation of sovereignty and resolutely denounce and reject it."

The spokesperson claimed, "Sanctions and pressure may work on the weak, but not on us. The routine sanctions commotion by the U.S. and the West has no impact whatsoever on the status of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea as a nuclear-armed state."

The spokesperson further asserted that North Korea's denuclearization has reached an "irreversible final conclusion both in theory and in practice," insisting that sanctions against the North will likewise lose their effectiveness.

The spokesperson also mocked, "It is not we who are isolated, but the U.S. and the Western camp, who lack any further means and capability to prove the effectiveness of sanctions and even lack the judgment and courage to admit their strategic failure," adding, "We will not bother to stop the U.S. and the West from clinging to their already depleted storehouse of sanctions to the end and driving themselves into an inescapable dilemma."

Turning to MSMT member nations other than the U.S., such as South Korea and Japan, as well as the EU, the spokesperson accused them of "actively jumping on the bandwagon" of U.S. sanctions and pressure against North Korea, warning, "We sound the alarm once again regarding their hostile acts, and they will be held duly accountable."

Earlier, 11 member nations of the MSMT and the EU stated in a joint statement on October 28 that the U.S., Australia, and the EU had imposed additional sanctions on individuals and entities involved in North Korea's dispatch of overseas workers, malicious cyber activities, and illicit cooperation between North Korea and Russia.

In the statement, MSMT member states and the EU reaffirmed their commitment to North Korea's complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization and noted that they will continue to respond to sanctions violations and evasions.

The MSMT was launched in 2024 to fill the void in sanctions monitoring after the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee Panel of Experts was dissolved when its mandate failed to be extended due to a Russian veto.
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.