BRUSSELS: The European Union (EU) has voted to renew sanctions against North Korean individuals and entities for contributing to the Asian country's nuclear activities, ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction programmes, as well as for evading the restrictions.
The EU has applied sanctions on 57 persons and has frozen the assets of nine entities as part of its own sanctions regime, Efe news reported on July 16.
It also applied all the corresponding resolutions of the UN Security Council, which imposed sanctions on another 80 persons and 75 entities.
EU sanctions against North Korea are the "toughest against any country", the Council said in a statement on Monday, adding that "the EU not only transposes the sanctions imposed by the UN but also has its own autonomous sanctions regime on North Korea, which complements and reinforces the sanctions adopted by the UN".
They were established in response to North Korea's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development activities, which violate numerous resolutions made by the UN Security Council.
The EU has repeatedly expressed its firm conviction that "lasting peace and denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula must be achieved by peaceful means", and that "the diplomatic process must be continued as the only way towards realizing that goal".
The ultimate objective still is to achieve "complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula", the Council concluded.