China, Russia to continue their attempts to cancel UN sanctions on North Korea
North Korea–China and Russia have vowed to keep going with their efforts to revive their age-old effort to start initiating talks about lifting sanctions off North Korea at the United Nations Security Council.
The two countries tried to pull off a similar attempt in 2019 but the majority did not agree to this. On Monday the two nations came together to draft resolutions proposed by Reuters earlier which proposed for the ban to be removed from Pyongyang’s export of status, seafood and textiles. They also urged the UN to lift the cap on refined petroleum imports.
The two communist nations are expecting the 15-member council to remove those sanctions so that they can remove the country from isolation, which it has been since the dictatorship came into existence. They emphasised on their intent of enhancing the livelihood of the civilian population.
The United Nations has imposed sanctions on North Korea since 2006 because of the continuous use of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The draft proposed by Reuters includes other measures by Russia and China nearly two years ago. The draft also includes lifting the ban on North Koreans working abroad and exempting inter-Korean rail and road cooperation projects from sanctions.
Though no one has openly said about the resolutions, some of the sources from the United Nations maintained that the draft may receive a little support but the ban will not be completely lifted. Two years ago, Russia and China talked about the issues informally while holding two rounds of talks but they never formally went ahead with the vote.
The diplomats involved in the matter clarified that the two nations did not schedule any talks on their draft resolution. To pass the draft, they will need ninem votes in total with no vetoes by the United States, France, Britain, Russia or China to pass.