Pyongyang: North Korea vehemently criticized a multilateral sanctions monitoring group for releasing a report on its military cooperation with Russia, labeling the action as a breach of "state's sovereign rights," as reported by government media.
According to Anadolu Agency, the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT), responsible for enforcing UN sanctions against North Korea, issued its inaugural report on Thursday. The report detailed "illegal" military collaborations between North Korea and Russia, which it claimed violated UN Security Council resolutions concerning Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea's Foreign Ministry, through a statement disseminated by the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), accused the MSMT of committing a "political provocation" by allegedly fabricating concerns about the cooperative relations between North Korea and Russia. The ministry criticized the MSMT, comprised of 11 UN member states, as a "bogus group" lacking legal legitimacy in its existence and purpose. It condemned the report as a "wanton" infringement on international legal principles regarding sovereignty, equality, and non-interference in domestic affairs.
The Foreign Ministry issued a "stern warning against the negative consequences to be entailed by its reckless acts," emphasizing that the MSMT serves as a "political tool" aligned with Western geopolitical interests. North Korea asserted that the MSMT lacks any justification to investigate the sovereign rights exercised by other nations.
The MSMT was created last October at the behest of the US and South Korea to maintain sanctions monitoring on North Korea. This followed the disbandment of the UN Panel of Experts on North Korea, originally tasked with overseeing the implementation of UN sanctions on the nation, which ceased operations due to Russia's veto.