China and Russia must continue to implement international sanctions that limit oil exports to North Korea, the top U.S. diplomat warned at the United Nations on Thursday.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo affirmed “in no uncertain terms” that North Korea has breached a cap on oil imports. China and Russia are the chief suppliers of petroleum products to North Korea, but they have rejected western assessments about the oil imports and reject U.S. charges of nonenforcement, even as American officials decry “ship-to-ship transfers” of oil to North Korean tankers on the high seas.
“We must convey to the captains of this ship, to their owners, and anyone else involved in these transfers that we are watching them and that they must cease their illicit activity,” Pompeo told the United Nations Security Council.
Oil sales to North Korea have been a diplomatic flashpoint for months at the United Nations Security Council, where Ambassador Nikki Haley filed a report that North Korea had imported more oil than U.N. sanctions permit. China and Russia barred the Security Council from adopting the U.S. report. Haley then accused Russia of using political pressure to edit an independent report from a panel of U.N. experts that would have implicated Russian companies in the violation of such sanctions.
“Russian corruption is like a virus,” Haley said. “If we’re not careful, the sickness will make its way to the integrity and the effectiveness of the Security Council itself.”
Pompeo used less confrontational rhetoric, but likewise alluded to reports that Russia and especially China have begun to expand economic engagement with North Korea.
“The United States is troubled by recent reports that member-states, including members of this Security Council, are hosting new North Korean laborers,” he said Thursday. “This violates the spirit and letter of the security council resolutions that we all agreed to uphold.”
China and Russia often counter that the United States regards sanctions as an end in themselves. Pompeo pre-empted that charge by pointing to progress in the ongoing negotiations, while emphasizing the need to maintain pressure until the talks conclude.
“We are well into a diplomatic process and we hope indeed we want to see this through to a successful end,” he said. “The future can be very bright for North Korea, if it makes good on its commitment to final, fully verified denuclearization.”
