▲ This illustration depicts U.N. sanctions against North Korea and its overseas labor program. (Yonhap)

SEOUL, Sept. 21 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Monday denounced a recent report by a U.S.-led multilateral sanctions monitoring team as illegal, accusing it of distorting normal activities as illicit ones and insisting that its overseas labor program constitutes legitimate economic ties with other countries.

In a report released last week, the Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) said Pyongyang continues to deploy workers abroad in violation of U.N. sanctions, with around 100,000 workers in at least 17 countries, mostly in China and Russia.

It also said some North Korean workers were involved in manufacturing military drones at Russian factories.

"The MSMT ... vividly revealed its true colors as a plot-breeding organization which distorts normal as abnormal and brands legal as illegal," a North Korean foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

"The DPRK's relations of exchange and cooperation with other countries cannot be subject to interference or investigation of a third party in any case as they are the exercise of legitimate rights under bilateral and multilateral treaties and agreements," the statement said.

The DPRK is the acronym for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

North Korea also rejected the legitimacy of U.N. sanctions resolutions against it, saying the United States and other Western countries have violated the principles of the U.N. Charter, including respect for sovereignty and noninterference.

"The DPRK ... will strongly counter" attempts to obstruct its development, and "normal and reciprocal cooperative relations" with other countries, the statement said.

The MSMT was established in October 2024 to monitor and report on the implementation of U.N. sanctions against North Korea, after Russia vetoed a resolution to extend the mandate of the U.N. Security Council's Panel of Experts on sanctions against Pyongyang.

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