OTTAWA—Russia is condemning this week’s summit on North Korea—co-hosted by Canada — saying the meeting produced “nothing constructive” and was little more than propaganda. Tuesday’s…
OTTAWA—Russia is condemning this week’s summit on North Korea—co-hosted by Canada — saying the meeting produced “nothing constructive” and was little more than propaganda.
Tuesday’s day-long session in Vancouver ended with agreement by the 20 nations for stronger efforts to enforce current sanctions and sever financial support, new maritime interdiction to counter the shipment of banned goods and support for dialogue between North and South Korea.
The measures are all meant to step up the pressure on the North Korean regime to abandon its development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.
But in a statement, Russia dismissed the gathering, which included foreign ministers from the U. S., Great Britain, Japan and South Korea among others, charging that it showed “total disrespect” for the United Nations Security Council.
It said the call for unilateral sanctions and other diplomatic measures beyond those set out in the UN resolutions was “absolutely unacceptable and counterproductive.”
“We regret to say that such meetings, which are conducted in a hurry and which negatively affect the function of proven multilateral formats, do little to normalize the situation on the Korean Peninsula but rather aggravate it,” Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement posted on its website.
The stern reaction from Moscow is not surprising. Russia was not invited to participate to this week’s talks. Nor was China. At the meeting, both nations were chided for not doing more to enforce sanctions.
“It’s apparent to us they’re not fully implementing all of the sanctions and there’s some evidence that they may be frustrating some of the sanctions,” U.
