North Korean Diplomat Says Pyongyang ‘Not Bothered’ by UN Sanctions, US Should Change Its Approach

Pyongyang is “barely affected” by the economic restrictions imposed by the UN to tackle its nuclear pursuits, North Korean External Economic Affairs Minister Kim Yong-jae told Yonhap News Agency on Friday.

North Korea faced international backlash when it withdrew from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and later conducted a series of nuclear tests and ballistic missiles launches. A range of UNSC resolutions, among other things, banned arms trade with Pyongyang and imposed restrictions on exports and imports.

The official claimed that the sanctions "don’t bother” the authorities in Pyongyang, and that the national energy and electricity output has increased from last year.

"Let them impose sanctions, for a hundred, or thousand years, if they wish – we cannot care less and are barely affected by them," he stressed.

Yong-jae also took a dig at Washington’s approach to North Korea’s nuclear program, indicating that officials in the US should revise their strategy.

"These people must not do things the way they’re doing them now, and have got to change their way," he added.

It come just one day after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un discussed denuclearization with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Vladivostok.

Kim said the US acted in “bad faith” in Vietnam when President Donald Trump and his team held talks with him in Hanoi.

Kim told Putin during their first-ever meeting on Thursday in Vladivostok that the situation on the Korean peninsula has reached a "critical point”, warning that peace and security on the Korean peninsula will entirely depend on the future US attitude.

"The situation on the Korean peninsula and the region is now at a standstill and has reached a critical point," the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) quoted Kim as saying.

The situation "may return to its original state as the US took a unilateral attitude in bad faith at the recent second DPRK-US summit talks”, he warned.

"Peace and security on the Korean peninsula will entirely depend on the US future attitude, and the DPRK will gird itself for every possible situation," KCNA quoted Kim as stating.

After holding one-on-one talks with Kim, Putin said he believes US security guarantees will probably not be sufficient to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear program.

Any US guarantees, the Russian leader stated, might need to be supported by other nations involved in previous six-way talks on the so-called denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The six-party negotiations involved South Korea, North Korea, the US, China, Russia, and Japan to settle the North’s nuclear issue but they collapsed in 2009 without achieving any results.

“[The North Koreans] only need guarantees about their security. That's it. All of us together need to think about this,” Putin stressed at a presser after his first ever face-to-face talks with the North’s leader.

“I'm deeply convinced that if we get to a situation when some kind of security guarantees are needed from one party, in this case for North Korea, that it won't be possible to get by without international guarantees. It's unlikely that any agreements between two countries will be enough,” he added.

The Russian president insisted that the guarantees would have to be legally binding and vouch for North Korea's sovereignty.

Trump and Kim met for the first time at a historic summit in Singapore in June last year, when they agreed to “work toward” denuclearization.

The two also held a second summit in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, in February, which failed after Trump walked away from the summit, claiming that Kim had insisted on the removal of all sanctions on North Korea in return. Pyongyang rejected that account, stressing that it had only asked for a partial lifting of the bans.

Pyongyang has taken several steps toward the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula by suspending missile and nuclear testing, demolishing at least one nuclear test site, and agreeing to allow international inspectors into a missile engine test facility.

The US, however, has insisted that all sanctions on the North must remain in place until it completely and irreversibly dismantles its nuclear program.

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