North Korea has vehemently condemned the newly formed multilateral sanctions monitoring team led by the United States, calling it “unlawful and illegitimate” and vowing that participating countries will face repercussions, Bloomberg reports.
The team, comprised of 11 nations including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the UK, the US, South Korea, and Japan, was announced on Wednesday. Its purpose is to monitor sanctions enforcement against North Korea, following the end of a UN panel’s monitoring due to a Russian veto earlier this year. The team aims to address concerns over North Korea’s ballistic missile program and weapons of mass destruction.
This announcement came just a day after North Korea blew up sections of roads linking to South Korea, marking a further escalation of tensions on the peninsula. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ramped up threats against Seoul, stating he has the right to “annihilate” his southern neighbor.
In a statement released through state media on Sunday, North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui declared that the nations involved in the monitoring program “will have to pay a dear price for it.”
