North Korea has threatened to take “resolute” action after the official launch last week of a new multinational organization to monitor sanctions against the North.

The external policy office chief at North Korea’s foreign ministry issued the threat in a statement carried by the North’s state Korean Central News Agency on Monday. 

South Korea and ten other countries held the inaugural meeting of the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team in Washington on Wednesday last week.
 
Calling the new organization an “illegal and criminal ghost group,” the North Korean official warned that hostile forces will have to “pay a steep price” for their attempt to block North Korea from exercising its sovereign rights. 

The official continued that North Korea lost interest in negotiating sanctions waivers long ago. 

The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team was launched in October last year, after the UN Panel of Experts on North Korea was dismantled the previous April due to Russia’s veto.