Tag Archives: HM Government

Speech: “We have taken these steps to restrict the income the DPRK uses to fund its prohibited nuclear and ballistic missile programs”

Thank you Mr President.

Last week we sat in this Council and listened to the many ways that North Korea has violated multiple UN resolutions and the will of the Security Council. The illegal nuclear programme. Multiple launches of ballistic missiles. The appalling human right violations.

We condemned, in the strongest possible terms, these reckless acts by North Korea. And we called on them to stop immediately all that activity in defiance of this Council. We also offered Kim Jong-Un a clear choice. A different path which leads to prosperity and security.

However, last Friday, the DPRK’s Permanent Representative defiantly made clear that North Korea has no intention of changing its path. They have no intention of abandoning their nuclear programme.

Instead, unbelievably, they claimed that they will be a responsible nuclear power. They show no sense of responsibility to their neighbours, over whom they fire their ballistic missiles. They show no sense of responsibility to the people they force into modern slavery.

As North Korea’s missile capabilities advance, so too do the contempt and disregard they show for this Council. They have repeatedly and wilfully rebuffed our unanimous will. They continue to act in brazen violation of their legal obligations and they seek to undermine our systems and our collective values.

Last week we all confirmed we must use all the diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal to deliver the uncompromising message that this path is unacceptable.

Today we are doing just that. Through the adoption of this Resolution we are showing the regime that our will is strong and that these provocative actions have severe consequences.

Today we have banned the import of nearly 90% of refined petroleum products to North Korea. These products are used by the regime to resource their illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programs. By cutting off this supply we will restrict their ability to develop and deploy these weapons.

We have also banned North Korean exports of food products, machinery and industrial and electrical equipment. We have taken another important step to end the exploitation of North Korean workers who are sent overseas with the sole aim of generating earnings for the regime.

We have taken these steps to restrict the income the DPRK uses to fund its prohibited nuclear and ballistic missile programs. I congratulate the United States on this diplomatic achievement and we join them in leaving no stone unturned in pursuit of a diplomatic solution.

We call on all states to implement this Resolution, and previous Resolutions, fully. It is only by all of us doing this that they will have the intended impact.

These measures are not designed to hurt the North Korean people. We are not targeting the ordinary citizens of North Korea. There are humanitarian exemptions and protections in place to protect the people who already suffer so much at the hands of the Government. It is the regime that bears full responsibility for the measures we have enacted today. Any consequences the people suffer are because of the regime’s reckless choices. The choice to develop its nuclear programme over providing for its people.

We must stand united and be clear that we are adopting these measures today to force Kim Jong-Un to see that he has the choice of two paths. The current path does not advance the prosperity and security of North Korea. It instead poses a very real threat to the entire international community.

So we once again call on North Korea to change course. Let us all once again call on them to prioritise the well-being of their people over their illegal pursuit of nuclear weapons. Let us once again call on them to engage, meaningfully, with the international community.

The United Kingdom will continue to work with members of this Council, our allies, our partners, to increase diplomatic pressure. This resolution just enacted gives us the opportunity to do just that. We must all enforce these new measures and work together using all the diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal to deliver this clear, uncompromising message to the Kim regime.

Thank you.

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HM Government

Press release: Foreign Secretary statement on adoption of UNSC resolution 2397 on North Korea

I welcome the unanimous adoption of the UNSC resolution on North Korea. The international community has shown that it is united in its condemnation of North Korea’s reckless behaviour.

This resolution takes vital steps to reduce the export revenues that the North Korean regime diverts away from its people to fund its illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

These further measures adopted show Kim Jong-Un that he has the choice of two paths. To either continue the current path of provocation and isolation or to put the wellbeing of the North Korean people first. We urge North Korea to change its course.

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HM Government

News story: Blue Belt representatives to visit Tristan da Cunha and St Helena

The Blue Belt Programme is a 4 year initiative delivered in partnership with the UK Overseas Territories, the UK Government and stakeholders to provide long term protection for over four million square kilometres of marine environment across the UK Overseas Territories.

The purpose of the visit is to discuss how the local communities of Tristan and St Helena will benefit from the implementation of the Blue Belt Programme. The Programme aims to ensure that, as well as providing greater environmental protection to globally important ecosystems, these benefits are delivered in tandem with social and economic opportunities for the local communities.

For example, by reviewing options for a Traffic Separation Scheme around Tristan da Cunha, identifying areas to be avoided around the islands/seamounts and introducing a compulsory reporting system for certain hazardous cargo, we can look at how best to mitigate the very real risks to the environment and to local fisheries that were brought into sharp focus with the 2011 MS Oliva grounding on Nightingale Island.

The Blue Belt Programme has also recently undertaken a survey of bluenose fishing stocks to ensure the long-term sustainable management of the fisheries business.

We are working with the St Helena Government on a range of projects to fulfill the objectives of their Marine Management Plan, including projects to determine the movements and growth of the local tuna populations, to establish the sustainability of grouper and lobster. We are also looking at other human impacts on the marine environment and how we can manage them.

The Blue Belt Programme are working closely with the Tristan da Cunha and St Helena Governments on a number of separate projects, but are also keen to hear direct from local communities whilst they are on the island, to answer their enquiries regarding the Programme.

Craig McGarvey, Programme Director will be joined by Dr Martin Collins, Lead Scientist for the Blue Belt Programme and Oliver Yates, Senior Marine Science Advisor.

Speaking today, Mr McGarvey said: “My colleagues and I are very much looking forward to meeting with the local communities of Tristan da Cunha and St Helena as well as meeting local officials and representatives of the Governments, to discuss how specific parts of the Blue Belt programme will be implemented in practice, to ensure that the social, environmental and economic benefits are realised.”

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HM Government

Press release: Foreign Secretary underlines UK support for media freedom and human rights in Russia

In a speech at the Plekhanov University, in Moscow, Boris Johnson also took the opportunity to underline the UK’s support for civil society and basic freedoms by meeting a range of civil society representatives and heard first-hand about the state of human rights in Russia.

The Foreign Secretary referenced the restrictions placed on media in Russia – reiterating that the UK believes that an open and free media is essential to any functioning democracy.

Addressing a room of students and journalists in Moscow, he recalled his own experiences growing up during the Cold War, and praised the benefits of a free, diverse and open civil society, as a way to boost economic growth and productivity.

If you look at both of our societies today it is obvious that the free market, in which people are free to find a market among the rest of the population for whatever goods they choose – within reason – to sell, and at whatever price they choose to sell them, is a more effective system of furnishing humanity with its desires than any other system. It was that brute fact alone that ensured the demise of communism.

Yet that freedom – free market economics, or capitalism – is simply not enough on its own.

That is why I want to make the case again today for the economic benefits of freedom of expression. I want to argue that the more tolerant a society is, the more supportive of free speech it is, the more likely that society is to be rich and successful.

I am sure that everyone can see that the media have played a crucial role in western democracies in holding politicians to account, and in telling the truth to power.

So a free media is in the interests of taxpayers, of shareholders – and of consumers. So it is in the interests of prosperity. Indeed it is no accident that if you look at the global prosperity index, and then you look at the societies where journalists are free and well treated, you will see that the most prosperous societies are the ones where freedom of speech is most cherished.

Equally if you have a society where journalists are shot because they investigate the business doings of the rich and powerful, then you will tend to find countries that are less economically successful, less equal, and less attractive as places to invest.

We have huge difficulties in our relationship [with Russia] today. We cannot ignore those difficulties and the UK will remain firm in its principles. We are forward looking.

But equally I hope I don’t have to belabour my credentials as an admirer of this country. I not only have Russian ancestry but am the first Foreign Secretary in history to be christened Boris – and may be the last for some time. I look back at that time in the 1990s, when in my conversations with Russian journalists and politicians we seemed to share the same ideals of freedom: free markets, freedom under the law, freedom to speak your mind without fear of intimidation, freedom to express yourself and your sexuality provided you do no harm to others.

And I hope that moment of convergence will seem not to have been a fluke, not an illusion, not a mirage or a false dawn. I hope that time will come again.

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HM Government