UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Russia vetoed a U.N. resolution Thursday in a move that effectively abolishes the monitoring by United Nations experts of U.N. sanctions against North Korea aimed at reining in its nuclear program, though the sanctions themselves remain in place.

  • MelianPretext@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    3 months ago

    Pretty momentous occasion as far as UNSC affairs go. This is the infamous March resolution that has been renewing the sanctions supervisory regime that was first implemented in 2014 and renewed every spring since. This year's would have been the 10 year anniversary of it and having it squashed by Russia and abstained by China is a positive step towards drawing back from a long cooperation with the West on this matter and a necessary preliminary move to re-legitimize any re-establishment of economic relations with the DPRK.

  • 201dberg@lemmygrad.ml
    ·
    3 months ago

    So the sanctions are still there but not being monitored so in effect they might as well not even have said sanctions?

    • cfgaussian@lemmygrad.ml
      ·
      3 months ago

      The sanctions are still there and the US will never allow them to be lifted, but this is just yet another step along the way to making said sanctions effectively meaningless. Russia has been trading extensively with the DPRK again for a while now and while they are careful to not outright violate UN imposed sanctions which are binding according to international law, they have pretty much managed to find alternative ways of doing the same thing just without strictly speaking going against the letter of the sanctions. And since Russia will not allow the US to strongarm the UN into imposing any additional sanctions to shut the alternatives down, these sorts of loopholes are just going to get bigger and more numerous until the existing sanctions are all but irrelevant.

    • ReaZ@lemmygrad.ml
      hexagon
      ·
      3 months ago

      I guess the way I understand it is that while the sanctions are still there without monitors they have a bit more room to maneuver.