Washington's Ill-advised Sanctions Will Cause Catastrophic Consequences: Researcher of DPRK Foreign Ministry

 Pyongyang, July 13 (KCNA) -- Jong Nam Hyok, a researcher of the Institute for American Studies of the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK, released a commentary titled "U.S. ill-advised sanctions will cause catastrophic consequences" on July 13.
    The commentary said:
    The U.S. administration staged the farce of announcing a "human rights report" and the "list of targets of special sanctions" malignantly slandering the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK on July 6, the first of its kind in history.
    This is another serious strategic mistake made by the Obama administration whose tenure of office is to expire soon.
    This blatant encroachment upon the sovereignty of the DPRK is the most vivid expression of the U.S. policy hostile to the DPRK and a product of its extremely self-opinionated point of view that anything favorable to its interests and taste should become a "just one", regardless of whether it is an act of violating international law or an immoral act. This is stunning the world public as it triggers off serious concern.
    It is one of the principles recognized by international law that all sovereign states can never become targets of domestic jurisdiction of other countries and this principle is explicitly specified in the "UN convention on exemption of a state and its properties from jurisdiction" adopted on Dec. 2, 2004.
    Paragraph 9 of Article 2 of the "code on crimes against human peace and security" written by the 6th United Nations Commission on International Law in 1953 clearly stipulates that if a country forces its will upon another country, takes steps to put political and economic pressure upon it and interferes in its internal affairs in a bid to seek interests, such acts are crimes against human peace and security.
    The respect for sovereignty among countries is an elementary international practice before being a requirement of international law.
    It is also a moral foundation for establishing international relations, which is vividly manifested through respect for the top representative of the dignity and interests of a country concerned.
    Even the Bush II administration which earned an ill-fame for frequent invectives and diplomatic gaffes against leaderships of other countries didn't perpetrate such acts beyond common sense as invoking the domestic act of the U.S. against the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK that represents the destiny of its service personnel and people.
    What the Obama administration did amounts to the self-acknowledgement of the total flop of its policy toward the DPRK.
    It became universally accepted understanding long ago that the present U.S. administration's "strategic patience" is, in essence, a hands-off approach and Obama and his staff had neither ability nor will to handle the Korean issue.
    When Obama bragged that he would "bring down" the social system of the DPRK, at the meeting with the YouTube video manufacturers in January last year, its subscribers in the U.S. aired their views that his careless words revealed his real intention and admitted to his failure in the policy towards the DPRK.
    The U.S. administration employed such a base method as hurting the dignity of the supreme leadership of the DPRK in a bid to conceal its failure in the policy towards the DPRK but it brought to light its strategic incompetence and awkward position.
    On July 6 a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, when asked by a reporter if the recent sanctions measure would bring a boomerang effect, was reported to have answered that they took the step out of a lot of consideration.
    The U.S., however, failed to consider the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by the reckless action.
    The DPRK government clarified its stand in the statement of the Foreign Ministry that the DPRK considers the U.S. act of hurting the dignity of the DPRK's supreme leadership as a declaration of a war and will take corresponding measures including the shut-down of all diplomatic contacts and channels with the U.S.
    The U.S. provocative sanctions have driven the rock-bottom DPRK-U.S. relations into an inescapable mire and marked a new starting point in further escalating the vicious cycle of tension on the Korean peninsula.
    The DPRK is now left with no option but to take new tough measures to defend the dignity of the supreme leadership and interests of the DPRK under the present situation in which the U.S. political and military provocations to stifle it have reached an extreme phase and there is the only way for it to settle accounts with the latter by force.
    There is no guarantee that Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military drill to be staged when the situation on the peninsula remains tenser than ever before and the DPRK-U.S. relations are at the lowest ebb will not create another explosive situation.
    The U.S. wrong option is bound to boomerang. -0