Pyongyang censures Paris for its monitoring of North Korean ships

Seoul, Oct 6 (EFE).- Pyongyang on Friday condemned France’s participation in surveillance operations to ensure that North Korean ships do not engage in illicit activities that violate United Nations Security Council sanctions.

In a text titled “France Should Refrain from Disturbing Peace and Security in Northeast Asia,” published by the state news agency KCNA and signed by an analyst named Ryu Kyong-chol, Paris’ decision is described as “extremely foolish.”

It follows Japan’s announcement earlier this week that France will join surveillance operations this month in the seas around the Korean Peninsula with a Falcon 200 aircraft based on the island of Okinawa.

France has participated every year since 2019 in these operations to try to prevent North Korean vessels from participating in exchanges of goods sanctioned by the UN.

Although North Korea is prohibited from trading fuel and other products based on sanctions imposed on the regime for its weapons of mass destruction programs, the isolated country reportedly continues to carry out ship-to-ship transfers on the high seas.

The North Korean analyst demands in the KCNA text that France immediately cease its “anachronistic ‘gunboat diplomacy’” which he considers an “extremely dangerous option” at a time when the situation on the peninsula, he assures, is “inching close to the brink of a thermo-nuclear war.”

This summer, North Korea denounced the holding of the first joint air maneuvers between France and South Korea, which it described as an “undisguised military provocation.” EFE

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