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Senators Urge Biden to Increase Pressure on North Korea

Two Republican senators have expressed concern to the Biden administration at the growing cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang over Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We are troubled by news reports that Russia and North Korea are strengthening their relationship, which will aid [Russian President] Vladimir Putin’s unjust and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” Senators Marco Rubio and Bill Hagerty said in their letter dated Thursday. 

“North Korea and Russia have recently agreed to dispatch North Korean laborers to areas in Ukraine seized by Russia,” their letter continued. “We also learned that Russia is attempting to purchase millions of artillery shells and rockets from North Korea.”

Rubio and Hagerty urged the Biden administration ”to fully enforce Congressional and multilateral sanctions to increase the pressure on the Kim regime.”

The senators sent the letter  Thursday to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Rubio is the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a senior member of the Committee on Foreign Relations. Hagerty is a member of the Senate Banking Committee and the Committee on Foreign Relations.

In response to the senators’ letter, a spokesperson for the State Department told VOA’s Korean Service on Saturday that “it is important for the international community to send a strong, unified message that the DPRK must halt its unlawful actions, abide by its obligations under U.N. Security Council resolutions, and engage in serious and sustained negotiations with the United States.”

North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The spokesperson continued, “U.N. sanctions on the DPRK remain in place, and we will continue to encourage all member states to implement them, including through diplomacy at the United Nations and with the DPRK’s neighbors.”

VOA Korean Service contacted North Korea’s U.N. mission in New York City requesting comment on the senators’ letter but has not received a reply. The service also contacted the Russian embassy in Washington ​and its U.N. mission in New York City but has not received a reply.

The U.N. Security Council has sanctioned North Korea against exporting arms in multiple resolutions dating back to 2006, and in December 2017, it passed a resolution banning member states from hiring North Korean workers in response to Pyongyang’s launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile a month earlier.

The U.S. and its allies and partners sanctioned Russia, excluding it from the global financial system days after its Feb. 21 invasion of Ukraine.

After setbacks in the war, Moscow has turned to Pyongyang for support.

In July, Russian Ambassador to North Korea Alexander Matsegora said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Izvestia that Moscow was willing to hire North Korean workers to rebuild the Russian-controlled Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region.

North Korea recognized the Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, the two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, on July 14.

According to the U.S. State Department, Russia wants to purchase rockets and artillery shells from North Korea as it runs short on weapons.

During a press briefing on Sept. 6, Vedant Patel, deputy spokesperson at the State Department, said, ”The Russian Ministry of Defense is in the process of purchasing millions of rockets and artillery shells from North Korea for use in Ukraine.”

He added, ”This purchase indicates that the Russian military continues to suffer from severe supply shortages due in part because of export controls and sanctions.”

Russian Ambassador to the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya said that the U.S. claim of Moscow’s arms purchase from Pyongyang is “another fake,” according to Tass, a state-owned news agency.

North Korea said on Thursday it has ”never exported weapons or ammunition to Russia” and “will not plan to export them,” it said in the statement released through KCNA.

The North Korean statement did not address sending workers to the Donbas.

North Korea continued to say it ”never recognized” the U.N. Security Council’s ”unlawful sanctions resolutions” imposed against North Korea ”which was cooked up by the U.S. and its vassal forces.”

If Moscow hires workers and buys weapons from North Korea, it would be violating sanctions it imposed on the regime as a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council. Such transactions would also put North Korea in violation of sanctions designed to prevent Pyongyang from earning much-needed hard currency to finance the development of nuclear missiles and ballistic missiles. 
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Republicans Quiet as Arizona Democrats Condemn Abortion Ruling

Arizona Democrats vowed Saturday to fight for women’s rights after a court reinstated a law first enacted during the Civil War that bans abortion in nearly all circumstances, looking to capitalize on an issue they hope will have a major impact on the midterm elections.

Republican candidates were silent a day after the ruling, which said the state can prosecute doctors and others who assist with an abortion unless it’s necessary to save the mother’s life. Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor, and Blake Masters, the Senate candidate, did not comment.

Katie Hobbs and Kris Mayes, the Democratic nominees for governor and attorney general, implored women not to sit on the sidelines this year, saying the ruling sets them back more than a century to an era when only men had the right to vote.

“We cannot let (Lake) hold public office and have the power to enact extreme anti-choice policies that she’s spent her entire campaign touting,” Hobbs said during a news conference outside the attorney general’s office. “As Arizona’s governor I will do everything in my power and use every tool at my disposal to restore abortion rights in Arizona.”

The ruling presents a new hurdle for Republicans who were already struggling to navigate abortion politics. It fires up Democrats and distracts attention from Republican attacks on President Joe Biden and his record on border security and inflation less than three weeks before the start of early and mail-in voting, which are overwhelmingly popular in Arizona.

Abortion rights are particularly salient among suburban women, who play a decisive role in close elections in Arizona.

“In Arizona, with a draconian abortion law in effect today, I think you will see suburban women take a real look at Democratic candidates who promise to do something even if it’s not in their power,” said Barrett Marson, a Republican consultant.

Democrats have poured tens of millions of dollars into television advertising focused on abortion rights, and women have been registering to vote in greater numbers than men across the country.

The old law was first enacted among a set of laws known as the “Howell Code” adopted by the first Arizona Territorial Legislature in 1864. It has been periodically re-adopted throughout the state’s history, including in 1901 and as recently as the 1970s.

Lake has spoken positively of Arizona’s territorial ban on abortion, which she called “a great law that’s already on the books.” She has called abortion “the ultimate sin” and has also said abortion pills should be illegal.

Masters called abortion “demonic” during the Republican primary and called for a federal personhood law that would give fetuses the rights of people. He’s toned down his rhetoric more recently, deleting references to a personhood law from his campaign website and dropping language describing himself as “100% pro-life.”

More recently, Masters has said he would support a bill proposed by Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., that would ban abortions nationwide after 15 weeks of pregnancy, except in cases of rape, incest or risk to the physical health of the mother. He has also said he supports a different Arizona law that seeks to ban abortions at 15 weeks.

Neither the Lake nor Masters campaign responded to requests for comment.

“Their silence speaks volumes,” said Mayes, the Democratic attorney general candidate. “They know how absolutely unpopular this 1901 law is. They know how indefensible it is. And they know that when Nov. 8 comes the people of Arizona are going to resoundingly reject this extreme abortion ban, this attack on the people of Arizona by voting them down.”

If elected, Mayes said, she would not enforce the abortion law and would direct county prosecutors to do the same. She said she believes it violates the privacy rights guaranteed by the state constitution.

Hobbs said she’d push lawmakers on her first day in office to repeal the abortion ban, a long shot for a legislature that is widely expected to be controlled by Republicans. Failing that, she said she’d support a ballot measure giving the voters the chance to decide in the 2024 election.

Hobbs also said she’d veto any legislation that further restricts abortion.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre condemned the ruling, which she said would have “catastrophic, dangerous and unacceptable” consequences.

“Make no mistake: this backwards decision exemplifies the disturbing trend across the country of Republican officials at the local and national level dead-set on stripping women of their rights,” Jean-Pierre said in a statement. 
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