Russian Foreign Ministry: We cannot continue to watch Security Council sanctions turn into an indiscriminate weapons to punish certain countries
Moscow- (ST)- Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova confirmed that her country cannot quietly watch the sanctions imposed by the Security Council turn into an indiscriminate weapons to punish certain countries.
Zakharova’s words came as a comment on the “West’s dissatisfaction” with Russia’s use of its veto against a draft resolution proposing to extend the mission of the expert group on sanctions against Democratic korea.
Zakharova said, “The White House considers Russia’s use of its veto to be reckless behavior against the UN Security Council resolution aimed at imposing sanctions on the DPRK.” However, Russia is in fact dealing seriously with the issue of the sanctions imposed by the Security Council, which were created to establish peace and stability. At the same time, Russia cannot calmly monitor these sanctions, which are supposed to be an emergency measure, but in reality they are turning into an indiscriminate weapon used to punish specific countries.
Zakharova pointed out the consequences of this trend on ordinary citizens, saying, “It is clear that endless sanctions do not bring the desired results to achieve the declared goals, while they only lead to tightening the financial and economic siege on the entire country, with all the subsequent consequences for the simple people.
According to Zakharova, the strong reaction from the United States and some other Western countries to the Russian veto was not surprising because the aforementioned international players relied heavily on the weapon of sanctions and hoped to continue using it to achieve their own geopolitical goals in aspects related to the relationship with Pyongyang.
Zakharova stressed that the purpose of the activities of theexpert team, which cannot be described as independent and impartial, was not to resolve issues related to maintaining international and regional security, but rather to criminalize Pyongyang and discredit the friends of the Democratic Republic of Korea.
“The United Nations has not adequately monitored the extent of the damage caused directly or indirectly to ordinary people due to UN Security Council sanctions, and traditionally the issue of illegal unilateral coercive measures remains one of the topics that is prohibited from being discussed.” She added
Zakharova continued, “For our part, we carefully studied the experts’ requests and we can say with confidence that most of them were not based on sufficiently strong foundations. However, not everyone deals in good conscience with the issue of interaction with experts. Otherwise, it would have been possible long ago to identify and stop arms smuggling channels to Haiti.
“We hope that the issue of the expert team on the DPRK will serve as a good lesson for the United Nations, in terms of starting to get rid of the dependence on the relevant Americans,” Zakharova
Yesterday, Russia used its veto power against the American draft resolution to extend the work of experts of the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on the DPRK for a year.
Hanan Shamout