Washington has accused Russia of quietly shipping refined petroleum to North Korea at levels that violates a cap imposed by the United Nations (UN) Security Council, warning that it could result to new sanctions.
The disclosure by the White House on Thursday came on the first day after the disbandment of a UN panel of experts monitoring enforcement of longstanding UN sanctions against North Korea for its nuclear weapons and missile programs following a Russian veto.
“At the same time that Moscow vetoed the panel’s mandate renewal, Russia has been shipping refined petroleum from Port Vostochny to the DPRK (North Korea),” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
Under U.N. sanctions, North Korea is limited to importing 500,000 barrels of refined products a year.
A Reuters news agency report says the Russian and North Korean UN missions in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the U.S. accusation.
Kirby said that in March alone, Russia shipped more than 165,000 barrels of refined petroleum to North Korea and that given the close proximity of Russian and North Korean commercial ports, Russia could sustain these shipments indefinitely.
Russia blocked the annual renewal of the UN sanctions monitors in late March in what a US official described as a calculated move by Moscow to hide its own violations of UN Security Council resolutions.
Kirby said the United States will continue to impose sanctions “against those working to facilitate arms and refined petroleum transfers between Russia and the DPRK.” North Korea is formally known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“We have previously worked to coordinate autonomous sanctions designations with our partners — including Australia, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, and the United Kingdom — and we will continue to do so,” he said.
The U.S. and South Korea in March launched a task force aimed at preventing North Korea from procuring illicit oil.
Heritage Times HT recalls that the US and others have also accused North Korea of transferring weapons to Russia for use against Ukraine, which it invaded in February 2022.
Both Moscow and Pyongyang deny the accusations, but vowed last year to deepen military relations.
The debris from a missile that landed in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Jan. 2 was from a North Korean Hwasong-11 series ballistic missile, UN sanctions monitors told a Security Council committee in a report seen by Reuters on Monday.
