ROK proposes UN probe over sanctions

SEOUL - The Republic of Korea said on Friday that it wants an investigation by the United Nations or another international body as it continues to reject Japanese claims that Seoul could not be trusted to faithfully implement sanctions against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

Kim You-geun, deputy director of the ROK's presidential national security office, said Seoul has been thoroughly implementing UN sanctions against Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons program. He demanded that Japan provide evidence for claims made by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his aides that there may have been illegal transfers of sensitive materials from the ROK to the DPRK.

Tokyo last week tightened the approval process for Japanese shipments of photoresists and other sensitive materials to the ROK, saying such materials can be exported only to trustworthy trading partners. The move, which could potentially hurt ROK technology companies that manufacture semiconductors and display screens used in TVs and smartphones, has triggered a full-blown diplomatic dispute between the countries that further soured relations long troubled over Japan's brutal colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula before the end of World War II.