Three days after the U.S. and North Korean leaders held a historic third meeting, North Korea's U.N. Mission accused the Trump administration Wednesday of talking about dialogue but being "more and more hell bent" on hostile acts.
A press statement from the mission pointed a finger at U.S. efforts to exert "overt pressure" and have the world's nations implement U.N. sanctions.
First, it said, the U.S. and 23 other countries sent a letter to the U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions on North Korea demanding urgent action "under the absurd pretext of 'excess in the amount of refined petroleum imported.'"
FILE - In this June 30, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump, center left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un walk on the North Korean side at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone. South Korea's President Moon Jae-in calls the recent U.S.-North Korean summit at the Korean border an end of mutual hostility between the countries. (AP PhotoSusan Walsh, File)
The United States and the other countries accused the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea, or DPRK, of violating U.N. sanctions by importing far more than the annual limit of 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum products, which are key for its economy. But last month Russia and China blocked the sanctions committee from declaring that Pyongyang breached the annual import limit.
North Korea's U.N. Mission said the United States, Britain, France and Germany then circulated a joint letter to all U.N. member states on June 29 "calling for repatriation of the DPRK workers abroad, thus inciting an atmosphere of sanctions and pressure against the DPRK."
It added that not only does this speak "to the reality that the United States is practically more and more hell-bent on the hostile acts against the DPRK, though talking about the DPRK-U.S. dialogue," but the letter was sent by the U.S. Mission "under the instruction of the State Department, on the very same day when President (Donald) Trump proposed for the summit meeting."
That day, Trump issued an unprecedented invitation to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas. Kim accepted and at their Sunday meeting, Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea when he crossed the demarcation line.
Trump and Kim agreed at the meeting to restart negotiations designed to denuclearize the Korean peninsula. North Korea's state media described their meeting as "an amazing event."
But there was nothing positive in Wednesday's statement from North Korea's U.N. Mission, which made no mention of nuclear talks, focusing instead on sanctions.
The U.N. Security Council imposed increasingly tough sanctions on North Korea in response to its nuclear bomb and ballistic missile tests. The sanctions are designed to cut off all North Korean exports, 90 percent of its trade, and disband its pool of workers send abroad to earn hard currency.
Despite the summits between Trump and Kim in Singapore and Hanoi, the United States has kept up pressure on countries to implement the sanctions — and on North Korea to abide by them.
"It is quite ridiculous for the United States to continue to behave obsessed with sanctions and pressure campaign against the DPRK, considering sanctions as a panacea for all problems," North Korea's mission said. "As we stated on several occasions, we do not thirst for lifting of sanctions."
The North Korean Mission also had a message for the other 192 U.N. member nations.
"All U.N. member states will have to keep vigilance against deliberate attempts by the United States to undermine the peaceful atmosphere that has been created on the Korean peninsula in no easy way," the mission said.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers for an American believed to be held by the Taliban for nearly two years are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment.
Ryan Corbett was abducted Aug. 10, 2022, after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there a year earlier. He arrived on a valid 12-month visa to pay and train staff as part of a business venture he led aimed at promoting Afghanistan's private sector through consulting services and lending.
Corbett has since been shuttled between multiple prisons, though his lawyers say he has not been seen since last December by anyone other than the people with whom he was detained.
In a petition sent Thursday, lawyers for Corbett say that he's been threatened with physical violence and torture and has been malnourished and deprived of medical care. He's been held in solitary confinement, including in a basement cell with almost no sunlight and exercise, and his physical and mental health have significantly deteriorated, the lawyers say.
Corbett has been able to speak with his family by phone five times since his arrest, including last month. His family has not been able to see him — his only visits have been two check-ins from a third-party government — and their characterizations of his mistreatment are based on accounts from recently released prisoners who were with him and his openly dispirited tone in conversations.
“During Mr. Corbett’s most recent call with his wife and children, Mr. Corbett indicated that the mental torture and anguish have caused him to lose all hope,” said the petition, signed by the Corbett family attorneys, Ryan Fayhee and Kate Gibson.
The petition is addressed to Alice Edwards, an independent human rights investigator and the special rapporteur for torture in the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the U.N. It asks Edwards, who was appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council, to “urgently reach out to the Taliban to secure Mr. Corbett’s immediate release and freedom from torture, as guaranteed by international law.”
"This situation is just dragging on, and I’m increasingly concerned and taking steps that I hope will make a difference and help the situation — just increasingly concerned and panicking about Ryan’s deteriorating health and physical and mental health," Corbett's wife, Anna, said in an interview. “And that was leading me to take this next step.”
The U.S. government is separately working to get Corbett home and has designated him as wrongfully detained. A State Department spokesman told reporters last month that officials had continually pressed for Corbett's release and were “using every lever we can to try to bring Ryan and these other wrongfully detained Americans home from Afghanistan."
A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Afghanistan said this week that it had no knowledge of Corbett's case.
Corbett, of Dansville, New York, first visited Afghanistan in 2006 and relocated there with his family in 2010, supervising several non-governmental organizations.
The family was forced to leave Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban captured Kabul, but he returned the following January so that he could renew his business visa. Given the instability on the ground, the family discussed the trip and “we were all pretty nervous,” Corbett's wife said.
But after that first uneventful trip, he returned to the country in August 2022 to train and pay his staff and resume a business venture that involved consulting services, microfinance lending and evaluating international development projects.
While on a trip to the northern Jawzjan province, Corbett and a Western colleague were confronted by armed members of the Taliban and were taken first to a police station and later to an underground prison.
Anna Corbett said that when she learned her husband had been taken to a police station, she got “really scared” but that he was optimistic the situation would be quickly resolved.
That, however, did not happen, and Anna Corbett, who has three teenage children and makes regular trips to Washington, said she's trying to advocate as forcefully as she can while not letting “anxiety take over.”
“I feel like it’s the uncertainty of all of it that just is so difficult because you just don’t know what’s going to come at you — what call, what news," she said. "And I’m worried about Ryan and the effect of the trauma on him and then also on my kids, just what they’re experiencing. I've tried to protect them the best I could, but this is so difficult.”
Associated Press writer Riazat Butt in Kabul, Afghanistan, contributed to this report.
This family photo shows Ryan Corbett holding rabbits with his daughter Miriam and son Caleb in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2020. Lawyers for Corbett, believed held by the Taliban for nearly two years, are asking a United Nations human rights investigator to intervene, citing what they say is cruel and inhumane treatment. Corbett was abducted on August 10, 2022 after returning to Afghanistan, where he and his family had been living at the time of the collapse of the U.S.-based government there one year earlier, on a valid 12-month business visa to pay and train staff. (AP Photo/Anna Corbett)
