An Italian company working with a European food security initiative in North Korea has received a humanitarian exemption from the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) committee overseeing North Korea sanctions.

The UNSC’s 1718 Sanctions Committee granted Agriconsulting SA (AESA) Italy the exemption to provide technical assistance to the European Commission (EC)-funded Food Security Office (FSO), a project that has now been extended until Feb. 2023.

The firm previously received an exemptionin July 2019 to provide “technical support for food-related matters to the DPRK” through the FSO project, although further details of the project were not specified in the committee’s