John Bolton on North Korea Sanctions

While looking for something else, I picked up this exchange, which I thought might interest you:

Reporter: The North Korean — DPRK Sanctions Committee is going to meet today, and they seem to be rather slowly getting up to speed on their reporting and all the other work they have to do, and it’s kind of dragging on for a while.

There’s some indication that perhaps some countries might be delaying action in the Sanctions Committee. Do you have a — does the U.S. have a sense of that, or —

Ambassador Bolton: Well, I don’t think it — the effect of the resolution, 1718, is going to be changed much one way or the other by when the Sanctions Committee meets or doesn’t meet. The obligations exist, and numbers of countries have taken important steps to carry it out, not only on the nuclear weapons and ballistics missile programs, but on the luxury goods prohibition as well. So work is continuing. Effects in the real world do not depend, fortunately, on the timing of Sanctions Committee meetings.

Reporter: (inaudible) — more quickly than others? And why isn’t —

Ambassador Bolton: Sure. Some countries have not submitted the reports that are required by Resolution 1718. That’s one thing that the Sanctions Committee needs to focus on to get complete reporting in.