North Korea on UN sanctions: ‘It’s an act of war’

The Hermit Kingdom has threatened to punish countries supporting the US-drafted UN resolution

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un

The latest United Nations sanctions against North Korea are effectively a complete economic blockade against the country, and tantamount to an act of war, Pyongyang’s foreign ministry said on Sunday. It threatened to punish those supporting the sanctions.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea on Friday for its recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, seeking to limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil and its earnings from workers abroad.

Up to 90% of refined petroleum exports to North Korea have been banned by the resolution, while North Koreans working abroad will also have to be repatriated within 24 months.

The U.S.-drafted resolution also caps crude oil supplies to North Korea at 4 million barrels a year and commits the Council to further reductions if it were to conduct another nuclear test or launch another ICBM.

“We define this ‘sanctions resolution’ rigged up by the U.S. and its followers as a grave infringement upon the sovereignty of our Republic, as an act of war violating peace and stability in the Korean peninsula and the region and categorically reject the ‘resolution’,” said the foreign ministry.

“There is no more fatal blunder than the miscalculation that the U.S. and its followers could check by already worn-out ‘sanctions’ the victorious advance of our people who have brilliantly accomplished the great historic cause of completing the state nuclear force,” it added.