U.S. Says "No" to Lifting Sanctions

I. "No" to Lifting Sanctions
UNITED NATIONS: China and Russia on Monday (December 16) proposed that the UN Security Council lift a ban on North Korea exporting statues, seafood and textiles, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters, in  a move Russia said is aimed at encouraging talks between Washington and Pyongyang.

The draft also called for a ban on North Koreans working abroad and the termination of a 2017 requirement for all such workers to be repatriated by next week. The draft would also exempt inter-Korean rail and road cooperation projects from UN sanctions.

A US State Department official said that now was not the time for the Security Council to consider lifting sanctions on North Korea as the country was "threatening to conduct an escalated provocation, refusing to meet to discuss denuclearization, and continuing to maintain and advance its prohibited weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes."

The sanctions on industries that Russia and China have proposed lifting earned North Korea hundreds of millions of dollars, and were put in place in 2016 and 2017 to try and cut off funding for Pyongyang's nuclear and missile programmes.

The United States, Britain and France have insisted that no UN sanctions should be lifted until North Korea gives up its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes. Pyongyang has been subject to UN sanctions because of those programs since 2006.

Concerns were growing internationally that North Korea could resume nuclear or long-range missile testing -- suspended since 2017 -- because denuclearization talks between Pyongyang and Washington have stalled.

The draft welcomes "the continuation of the dialogue between the United States and the DPRK at all levels, aimed at establishing new US-DPRK relations, building mutual confidence and joining efforts to build a lasting and stable peace on the Korean Peninsula in a staged and synchronized manner." DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

The draft also calls the so-called six-party talks between North Korea, South Korea, China, the United States, Russia and Japan to be resumed or the launching of "multilateral consultations in any other similar format, with the goal of facilitating a peaceful and comprehensive solution through dialogue."

Russia and China have long said the Security Council should reward Pyongyang after Kim pledged in 2018 to work toward denuclearization.

At a council meeting on North Korea -- called by the United States -- China's UN Ambassador Zhang Jun said sanctions should be adjusted to "head off a dramatic reversal" of the situation.

The draft resolution circulated to the Security Council by Russia and China said the sanctions would be terminated "with the intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population."

Pyongyang was famous for building huge socialist-style statues which it exports mainly to African countries. Some analysts estimated that North Korea had made tens of millions of dollars selling such statues.

It also made millions of dollars from seafood. A UN diplomat said in 2017 that North Korea had been expected to  earn some US $295 million from seafood exports that year.

Textiles were North Korea's second-biggest export after coal and other minerals in 2016, totalling US $752 million, according to data from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA). Nearly 80 per cent of textile exports went to China, according to Chinese customs data.

The wages of workers sent abroad also provided foreign currency for the Pyongyang government. A  UN human rights investigator said in 2015 that North Korea was forcing more than 50,000 people to work abroad, mainly in Russia and China, earning between US $1.2 billion and US $2.3 billion a year.

II. Disarmament Treaties on Chopping Block
The next nuclear disarmament agreement on the chopping block appears to be the 2010 New START Treaty, which reduces U.S. and Russian deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 each, limits U.S. and Russian nuclear delivery vehicles, and provides for extensive inspection. If the treaty is allowed to expire, it would be the first time since 1972 that there would be no nuclear arms control agreement between Russia and the United States.

One other key international agreement,which President Clinton signed -- but, thanks to Republican opposition, the U.S, Senate has never ratified -- is the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Adopted with great fanfare in 1996, and backed by nearly all the world's nations, the CTBT bans nuclear weapons testing, a practice which has served as a prerequisite for developing or upgrading nuclear arsenals.