Implementation of sanctions against DPR Korea on track, UN says

The implementation of sanctions against the Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea (DPRK), imposed last October after the country claimed to have conducted a nuclear test, is on track, the head of the Security Council’s sanctions committee said today.

The Sanctions Committee, created by the Council, met today in New York to discuss progress made in implementing the measures, which expressly ban the support by Member States of the country’s nuclear-related, other weapons of mass destruction-related and ballistic missile-related programmes.

Thus far, 68 countries and the European Union have reported that they are in the process of implementing the sanctions, the Committee’s chairman Ambassador Marcello Spatafora of Italy, told reporters after the meeting.

Of these countries, 31 stated they already have the appropriate legislation in place, 27 have informed the Council that there are measures which have already been or will be adopted to put the sanctions into operation, and a further 10 have notified the necessary officials in their governments with the intention of implementing them.

Expressing his satisfaction at the current pace of implementation, Mr. Spatafora said, “there was not a single case in which we, the Committee, had the perception or the feeling there was some resistance or backtracking.”

The sanctions were unanimously adopted by the 15-member Council in resolution 1718 – invoking Chapter VII of the UN Charter which allows for enforcement measures – after DPRK’s 9 October underground nuclear test.

The binding resolution called for DPRK to “suspend all activities related to its ballistic missile programme and in this context re-establish its pre-existing commitments to a moratorium on missile launching,” and also to “abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programmes in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner.”

Member States, the Council said in the resolution, are also to prevent the import from or export to the DPRK of “any battle tanks, armoured combat vehicles, large calibre artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems” as well as “related materiel including spare parts” and other items determined by the sanctions committee.

Other items to be set out in separate lists are also banned, including those “which could contribute to DPRK's nuclear-related, ballistic missile-related or other weapons of mass destruction-related programmes.” Luxury goods are also prohibited from being exported to DPRK.