North Korea says sanctions deny its right to exist

UNITED NATIONS — North Korea again asked U.N. Secretary-general Antonio Guterres on Monday to organize an international forum to clarify the legality of increasingly tough Security Council sanctions, which it says are erasing its people’s “right of existence.”

A press statement from North Korea’s U.N. Mission said the intensified sanctions resolutions spurred by the United States are imposing a “blockade” and violate the country’s sovereignty.

The mission accused the Security Council of “uncivilized behavior” by trying to bring North Korean society back “to the old history of medium darkness.”

North Korea first asked the U.N. Secretariat, which Guterres heads, to organize a legal forum a year ago and it says it sent five letters to the secretary-general and met with him and the U.N. political and legal chiefs.

But the mission said the request was rejected on grounds that the Security Council is authorized by the U.N. Charter to determine what constitutes a threat to international peace and security.

The council has determined that North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests, which have become increasingly sophisticated, constitute such a threat. In response, it has imposed sanctions that now bar over 90 percent of the country’s exports and most imports.