Translated material
Pyongyang came under sanctions
UN Security Council punishes North Korea through non-military means
The international community managed to develop a united and fairly tough position towards North Korea, which carried out a nuclear test a week ago. This was expressed in the unanimous adoption by the UN Security Council on Saturday of resolution number 1718.The document condemned the nuclear explosion as "a clear threat to international peace and security." The Security Council demanded that North Korea not conduct new nuclear tests or launch ballistic missiles and “completely abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs, as well as all other existing weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.” The resolution stressed that Pyongyang must do this in a “verifiable and irreversible manner.”
The resolution, as expected by the Vremya Novostei newspaper , was approved only after Moscow and Beijing familiarized themselves with the results of the shuttle diplomacy of Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan, who acted as the special envoy of Chinese leader Hu Jintao. At the end of last week, it was received by Russian and US Presidents Vladimir Putin and George Bush. Vice President and Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov spoke with Tan, who said that although the North Korean test was a “disgrace,” the resolution should exclude the use of military force. Sanctions, according to the minister, need to be lifted immediately after the DPRK returns to the six-party negotiations on the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula.
The UN Security Council resolution provides for the possible “strengthening, modification, suspension or lifting” of the imposed sanctions or the introduction of new punishments, depending on the further actions of the DPRK. From now on, it is prohibited to supply heavy weapons to North Korea: tanks, combat aircraft and ships, missiles, missile and nuclear technologies. At the same time, luxury goods fell under the embargo. The resolution authorizes the UN and national law enforcement agencies to compile lists of legal entities and individuals involved in North Korea's nuclear and missile programs in order to freeze their bank accounts. UN members are instructed to deny entry visas to persons found to be working for these programs.
The original draft of the resolution was drawn up by the Americans. They had to soften his wording three times. The text, however, still contains a reference to Chapter VII of the UN Charter “Action with respect to threats to the peace, breaches of the peace and acts of aggression.” However, it concerns only Article 41, according to which the Security Council has the opportunity to determine “what measures not related to the use of armed forces should be used to implement its decisions.” The resolution explicitly states that it cannot be implemented by military means.
As a result of the latest amendment, the United States abandoned its demand to stop the supply of all weapons, including small arms, to the DPRK. The provision on mandatory inspection of both cargo sent to the DPRK and exported from it for the detection of weapons of mass destruction and its components has become not mandatory, but advisory in nature. After the vote, Moscow and Beijing, just in case, opposed the search of North Korean ships on the high seas.
North Korea's permanent representative to the UN, Park Kil-yong, likened the Security Council resolution to “banditry.” He said that North Korea would regard continued US pressure as a “declaration of war.” Following this, the DPRK delegation left the meeting room. US Permanent Representative John Bolton compared this demonstrative departure to the way Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev pounded his boot on the UN podium in 1960. Russian Permanent Representative Vitaly Churkin immediately demanded that Bolton “refrain from inappropriate historical parallels.”
On Saturday, Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Alexander Alekseev visited Pyongyang. There he was assured that “the six-party process must continue” in the interests of “complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.”
South Korean Foreign and Trade Minister Ban Ki-moon, elected on Friday as the new UN secretary-general, welcomed the resolution as “a very clear, strong and united message to North Korea.” Mr Ban, who will be UN secretary-general from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2011, vowed to travel to Pyongyang “as soon as it becomes necessary.” He called on the international community to engage in dialogue with North Korea, “and not just punish it with sanctions.”
“The question now is how resolution 1718 will be interpreted,” Alexander Vorontsov, head of the Korea and Mongolia department at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told VN. According to him, Russia and China “made every effort to make the resolution balanced and conducive to maintaining the non-proliferation regime.” “Now they are calling for restraint and a shift in emphasis to diplomatic efforts,” Mr. Vorontsov noted.
According to the expert, “an extremely undesirable scenario for the development of events cannot be ruled out.” The resolution recommends the inspection of North Korean ships, but if the United States perceives this provision as carte blanche to intercept and search North Korean ships, “Pyongyang’s retaliatory measures are possible with all the ensuing negative consequences.”
“We need to put an end to further sanctions,” our interlocutor notes, since the DPRK interrupted the six-party negotiations a year ago due to “actual sanctions imposed against it by the United States.” “If UN sanctions are implemented only taking into account the unilateral logic of increasing pressure on the DPRK, this will become an attempt to treat a long-standing disease not with a new, more effective medicine, but with an old one, only with an increased dosage. And this old medicine has already proven its worthlessness and has caused a lot of contraindications,” emphasized Alexander Vorontsov.
With this development of the situation, the DPRK will continue to believe that the main goal of the United States is the elimination of the North Korean state. However, it was precisely because of these fears that Pyongyang acquired nuclear weapons. “The international community must show North Korea that it is not interested in changing its regime, but in involving it as an equal partner in the diplomatic process in order to reach a negotiated solution to the nuclear problem. The US contribution could consist in normalizing relations with the DPRK, which it would undoubtedly perceive as a guarantee of its security,” believes VN’s interlocutor.