(COLOMBO, LANKAPUVATH) –Sri Lanka’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issuing a statement said the Reports regarding textile imports from North Korea to Sri Lanka are erroneous.
The Foreign Affairs Ministry further said that Sri Lanka In keeping with its international obligations as a member of the United Nations, abides by the provisions of the UN Security Council resolutions related to the East Asian country and closely cooperates with the UN Security Council Panel of Experts (PoE) for the implementation of the respective Resolutions.
Following is the full statement issued by the Foreign Affairs Ministry:
The attention of this Ministry has been drawn to news reports regarding textile imports from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to several countries including Sri Lanka during the period October 2017 and March 2018.
The Ministry wishes to clarify that the information contained in the news reports in relation to Sri Lanka are erroneous.
In keeping with Sri Lanka’s international obligations as a member of the United Nations, the Government of Sri Lanka abides by the provisions of the UN Security Council Resolutions in relation to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Accordingly, necessary domestic regulations in relation to the implementation of relevant UN Security Council Resolutions have been gazetted on 06 October 2017, 19 April 2018 and 14 May 2018 respectively (reference: Extraordinary Gazette Nos. 2039/32, 2067/14 and 2071/3).
Sri Lanka cooperates closely with the UN Security Council Panel of Experts (PoE) for the implementation of the respective Resolutions, and provides responses to questions raised by the PoE from time to time.
There have been several instances where, at the point of data entry into the Customs Automated Data Processing System by the Consignee/ Customs House Agent, the country of export had been selected inadvertently as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, instead of the Republic of Korea. Having clarified this inadvertent error to the PoE, the Sri Lanka Customs has now initiated a mechanism to prevent repetition of such errors in the future.
