UN Hopes Talks with North Korea Result in Sanctions Removal - Spokesperson
The United Nations expects that the negotiations between the United States, North Korea and South Korea on the denuclearization of Korean Peninsula will eventually result in the lifting of Security Council sanctions, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a press briefing on Wednesday
"We hope very much that the dialogue that we have seen between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and the Republic of Korea will have positive benefits and positive outcomes," Dujarric told reporters. "We hope, one day, we will see the lifting of the sanctions."
The spokesman added that the sanctions imposed by the Security Council had unintended consequences on humanitarian operations in North Korea, which now is facing a humanitarian crisis.
Specifically, he said, they affected the banking channel utilized to fund UN humanitarian operations in the country.
Earlier on Wednesday, UN Resident Coordinator in the DPRK Tapan Mishra said in a statement that humanitarian activities in North Korea are "critically underfunded." The statement came shortly after the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs released a report calling on the global community to urgently provide some $120 million for basic humanitarian aid to 3.8 million North Koreans in 2019.
The second summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un concluded with no agreement signed in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi last week.