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Foreign Ministry elaborates draft presidential decree toughening North Korea sanctions

The decree envisages additional bans on trade-and-economic, banking-and-financial and scientific-and-technical cooperation with North Korea

MOSCOW, February 20. /TASS/. Russia’s Foreign Ministry has elaborated a presidential decree toughening sanctions against North Korea in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2321.

The relevant document was posted on the federal portal of draft legal documents on Monday. 

According to the explanatory note to the document, the decree envisages additional bans on trade-and-economic, banking-and-financial and scientific-and-technical cooperation with North Korea. "It is necessary to stop scientific-and-technical cooperation involving individuals or groups of individuals officially representing North Korea, except exchanges in the sphere of medicine," the document says. Such cooperation might be possible in the areas of nuclear technologies, aerospace machine-building and aircraft-building provided the United Nations Security Council committee rules such activities would not promote North Korea’s nuclear program.

The Russian side however will be entitled to decide by itself whether its scientific-and-technical cooperation with North Korea is not promoting the latter’s nuclear program on condition that the Security Council committee is notified about that beforehand.

The draft decree prohibits supplies of new helicopters and sea vessels to North Korea. More to it, all sea vessels owned or controlled by North Korea are to be deregistered. Apart from that, aircraft and sea vessels inspection is to be toughened.

The draft also imposes a ban on imports of copper, nickel, silver and zinc from North Korea.