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US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (right) meets with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Washington

The US government appears to be tightening the reins on the international community’s implementation of sanctions against North Korea. After the second North Korea-US summit ended without a joint agreement, the US first articulated the tough stance that it won’t lift sanctions until the North has completely denuclearized and then pushed the UN to keep member states on board with the tough sanctions.

On Mar. 13, the US State Department announced that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Washington, DC, that same day. During the meeting, the State Department said, the two leaders had discussed a range of issues, including the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, developments in Venezuela and the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

In regard to the Korean Peninsula, Pompeo appears to have told Guterres about the results of the North Korea-US summit and asked for his cooperation in implementing the UN Security Council’s sanctions against North Korea. A yearly report by a panel of experts that was released by the UN Security Council Sanctions Committee on North Korea the previous day addressed North Korea’s violations of the sanctions, including ship-to-ship transfers. In recent days, Pompeo has been emphasizing that sanctions on North Korea were the decision not of the US but of the UN Security Council and that the US has built a completely international coalition to implement those sanctions.

In addition, Stephen Biegun, the US State Department’s special representative for North Korea policy, is planning to visit the UN headquarters in New York on Mar. 14 to meet with representatives from the major countries represented on the Security Council. Biegun is the US’ chief negotiator in its working-level denuclearization talks with North Korea. The US State Department stressed that Biegun will be discussing efforts to guarantee the complete implementation of the UN Security Council’s resolutions until North Korea’s final and fully verified denuclearization (FFVD).

The US appears to be adjusting the intensity of its pressure on North Korea. One diplomatic source said that, as long as North Korea doesn’t engage in any provocative behavior, such as launching a satellite or missile, the US won’t crank up its own sanctions or the UN sanctions.

And in the 2018 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices released by the US State Department, the language about the North Korean regime’s human rights violations was toned down a little compared to the previous year. This year’s report listed conditions in North Korea, including extrajudicial killings by the government, but omitted a section found in the 2017 report about North Koreans suffering “egregious” human rights violations by their government.

In a related story, 38 North, a website that specializes in North Korean affairs, said that its analysis of commercial satellite photographs showed “no changes to the launch pad or engine test stand between Mar. 8 and Mar. 13” at the Tongchang Village missile test site. For example, all the mobile equipment at the two sites are in the same position in photographs taken on those two days. Previously, 38 North had reported that the launch pad at Tongchang Village had returned to normal operations based on photographs taken on Mar. 6.

By Hwang Joon-bum, Washington correspondent

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