SEOUL - North Korea on April 19 ridiculed this week’s Asia tour by the top US envoy to the United Nations, calling it the “aid-begging trip of a loser”.
Ms Linda Thomas-Greenfield on April 16 urged Pyongyang to return to dialogue during a visit to South Korea, adding later she still believed sanctions were an “effective tool” to deter the nuclear-armed North.
Her comments followed Russia using its UN Security Council veto in March to effectively end UN monitoring of violations of the raft of sanctions on Mr Kim Jong Un’s regime.
In a statement, Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry said Ms Thomas-Greenfield’s trip – which began on April 14, a day after Iran’s drone and missile strike on Israel – would have been better spent addressing the spiralling situation in the Middle East.
“The US has taken no account of peace and security guarantee in the Middle East including Palestine, but it is at a loss for the miserable fate of the tattered sanctions mechanism against the DPRK,” said the statement signed by Vice-Foreign Minister Kim Son Gyong, using the initials of the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
The US envoy’s tour of the region was “no more than an aid-begging trip of a loser to enliven the weakened illegal sanctions and pressure on the DPRK with the help of inferior allies”, it added.
In 2023, North Korea conducted a record number of missile tests in defiance of UN sanctions in place since 2006 and despite warnings from Washington and Seoul, having declared itself as an “irreversible” nuclear weapons state in 2022.
During her stay in Seoul, Ms Thomas-Greenfield blamed countries including “Russia and Iran” for having “not implemented these sanctions” against the North “in a way that will allow them to work as effectively as they can”.
She also said Washington was collaborating with Seoul, Tokyo and others to explore “some creative ways” and “out-of-the-box thinking” to ensure the continuation of the UN’s monitoring activities.
But North Korea said the US envoy appeared to have “forgotten her duty”.
“At present, the Middle East situation, including Palestine’s admission to a UN membership is brought up for discussion at the UNSC as the most pressing issue,” its statement said.
North Korea has recently bolstered military ties with Moscow, and in April it thanked Russia for its veto blocking the renewal of a panel of UN experts that monitored international sanctions against it.
Seoul and Washington say Mr Kim has been shipping weapons to Russia for its war in Ukraine, possibly in exchange for Moscow’s technical assistance for Pyongyang’s budding spy satellite programme. AFP
