North Korea’s mission to the United Nations has accused the U.S. of being "obsessed with sanctions" and "more and more hell-bent on hostile acts" against Pyongyang.
North Korea’s delegation to the U.N. said Wednesday that the country was responding to a letter sent to all U.N. member states late last month. In it, the U.S. — alongside the U.K., Germany and France — called on countries around the world to implement tougher sanctions on the Communist state.
The mission said the letter was sent by the U.S. on June 29, the same day President Donald Trump tweeted he would like to shake hands with leader Kim Jong Un during his visit to the demilitarized zone on the Korean Peninsula.
The meeting on Sunday, which saw Trump become the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in the isolated regime, culminated in the pair agreeing to resume talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program.
The U.S. letter to its U.N. cousins, reportedly sent on June 27, urged countries to call for the return of all North Korean workers by the end of 2019.
The U.N. Security Council has unanimously boosted sanctions against North Korea since 2006 in a sustained attempt to choke funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs. U.N. member states have banned exports from North Korea including coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood, and capped imports of crude oil and refined petroleum products.
Last month, the U.S. told a council sanction committee that North Korea had breached a cap on refined petroleum imports, mainly through transfers between ships at sea.
