Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what the criteria are for the Government deciding to review the sanctions which the UK imposes on North Korea.

The UN Security Council (UNSC) has imposed ten resolutions on North Korea in response to its illegal pursuit of nuclear and ballistic missile programmes since 2006 (most recently UNSCR 2397 on 23 December 2017). The EU has introduced its own additional autonomous measures. The sanctions contained within these measures, together with a strategy of maximum pressure, are designed to bring North Korea to the negotiating table with the aim of achieving the complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation of North Korea. Until North Korea takes concrete steps to bring this about we will continue working with our international partners to keep up pressure and strictly enforce existing sanctions. Any sanctions the UK imposes on North Korea result from UNSC and EU decisions and we would review them within the UNSC and EU frameworks.