North Korea rejects report on overseas workers, calls sanctions monitors ‘illegal’

North Korea on Monday rejected a report on its overseas workers by a US-led sanctions monitoring group, accusing it of misrepresenting legitimate economic cooperation as violations of UN sanctions.

The Foreign Ministry called the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team a “ghost group lacking any legality,” according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency.

The team reported last week that between 35,600 to more than 100,000 North Korean workers remained in at least 17 countries, mainly China and Russia, despite UN sanctions requiring their repatriation.

Some were involved in manufacturing military drones in Russia, the report said.

Pyongyang defended its exchanges with other countries as legitimate, saying they “cannot be subject to interference or investigation of a third party.”

It vowed to “strongly counter” attempts to obstruct its development and international cooperation.

The monitoring team was established in October 2024 after Russia blocked renewal of the mandate of the UN Panel of Experts responsible for monitoring sanctions on North Korea.

Its 11 members are the US, South Korea, Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the UK.

The UN panel had monitored sanctions since 2009. Its mandate expired on April 30, 2024, after Russia vetoed a Security Council resolution the previous month that would have extended it for another year.

Thirteen council members supported the extension, while China abstained. The sanctions themselves remained in force.