UN Special Rapporteur On Sanctions Says Expects To Visit North Korea In 2019

Idriss Jazairy, the UN special rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures, told Sputnik that he was planning to pay a visit to North Korea this year, at Pyongyang's invitation, to assess the situation in the country

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 26th March, 2019) Idriss Jazairy, the UN special rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures, told Sputnik that he was planning to pay a visit to North Korea this year, at Pyongyang's invitation, to assess the situation in the country.

"I received an invitation from the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] to make a visit to North Korea. I hope I can do that in the course of this year. I need to go there and see what is the situation and I will make some recommendations on the basis of what I have seen," Jazairy said.

The UN rapporteur welcomed the ongoing US-North Korea negotiations, adding that the current challenge was actually a "question of sequence," with Washington demanding that Pyongyang destroy all its nuclear facilities before they start lifting the sanctions and the latter insisting that the process start with gradual sanctions relief.

"The problem is that after the US withdrawal from the nuclear agreement with Iran it may be that North Koreans want to make double sure that it is not going to happen to them as well," he said, noting that the fact "the international agreements are not necessarily respected" was "very worrying."