The United States and 25 other countries are accusing North Korea of violating U.N. sanctions by importing far more than the annual limit of 500,000 barrels of refined petroleum products.
As per the complainants, the U.N. Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea to rule that Pyongyang breached the cap and demand an immediate halt to deliveries.
It said most of the excess petroleum products were obtained from dozens of illegal ship-to-ship transfers. Last July, Russia and China blocked a similar request from the U.S. to get the U.N. sanctions committee to publicly accuse North Korea of violating the annual quota. The Russians and Chinese are key suppliers of petroleum products to North Korea.
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The Security Council imposed sanctions on North Korea after its first nuclear test explosion in 2006 and has made them tougher and tougher in response to further such tests and its increasingly sophisticated ballistic missile program.
Dialogue between the U.S. and North Korea have been idle since the Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi in February broke down over what the United States described as excessive North Korean demands for sanctions relief in exchange for only a partial surrender of its nuclear capabilities.
The quota on refined petroleum products was one of the tough sanctions imposed by the Security Council in December 2017 in response to North Korea launch of a ballistic missile that Pyongyang said is capable of reaching anywhere on the U.S. mainland.