North Korea slams monitoring group's report on its military cooperation with Russia

ANKARA

North Korea blasted a multilateral sanctions monitoring group Monday for releasing a report on its military cooperation with Russia, calling the move a violation of a "state's sovereign rights," government media reported.

The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT), which oversees the enforcement of UN sanctions against North Korea, on Thursday issued its first report detailing "illegal" military cooperation carried out between North Korea and "Russia in violation of the UN Security Council resolutions" against Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.

North Korea's Foreign Ministry, in a statement, said the MSMT committed a "political provocation" by fabricating a report taking issue with cooperative ties between North Korea and Russia, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The ministry labelled the MSMT, which consists of 11 UN member states, a "bogus group which has no legality in terms of existence and purpose," adding the report is a "wanton" violation of international legal principles centering on sovereignty, equality, and non-interference in others' internal affairs.

"We give stern warning against the negative consequences to be entailed by its reckless acts," the ministry said.

North Korea said the MSMT is a "political tool" operating in line with the West's geopolitical interests, insisting that "it has no justification to investigate the exercise of sovereign rights of other countries."

The MSMT was established in October last year with the initiative of the US and South Korea to continue sanctions monitoring of North Korea following the disbandment of the UN Panel of Experts on North Korea, a panel tasked with monitoring the implementation of UN sanctions on the country, owing to Russia's veto.

*Writing by Aamir Latif