South Korea on Friday sanctioned eight people and seven companies suspected of engaging in illegal activities to finance North Korea’s growing missile and nuclear weapons programs.
The move, which bars South Koreans from doing any business with them without authorization, was largely symbolic, as there is little financial dealing between the rival Koreas. But the steps may still provoke an irritated response from North Korea, which last month called South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his government “idiots” and a “wild dog gnawing on a bone given by the US.” Unilateral sanctions on Pyongyang.
The South Korean sanctions were announced shortly after the US Treasury Department said it sanctioned three members of North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party who supported the country’s development of nuclear and ballistic weapons.
South Korea’s foreign ministry said the Seoul sanctions were in response to the growing weapons threat from the North, highlighted by last month’s test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that demonstrated potential range to reach the continental United States. .
The eight individuals and seven companies targeted by Seoul had already been sanctioned by Washington and were involved in a variety of efforts by North Korea to evade United Nations Security Council sanctions to finance its weapons program, including ship-to-ship transfers of fuel and illicit exports. from work, the ministry said.
Those listed on the sanctions include six officials from four different North Korean banks, a Taiwanese national named Chen Shih Huan, and a Singaporean named Kwek Kee Seung. Four of the sanctioned companies were North Korean shipping and trading companies and the other three were Singapore-based shipping companies.
“(Our) government has been maintaining close coordination with the United States and Japan so that the same individuals and groups come together under the unilateral sanctions of related nations in order to increase the awareness of the international community and strengthen the effectiveness of the sanctions,” said. the ministry said in a statement.
South Korea imposed sanctions in October on 15 people and 16 organizations accused of supporting North Korea’s weapons development, marking Seoul’s first unilateral sanctions against Pyongyang in five years.
North Korea ramped up its weapons demonstrations at a record pace this year, testing dozens of missiles, including ICBMs, as it exploited the distraction created by Russia’s war on Ukraine to advance its weapons program and increase pressure on Washington and Seoul. .
US and South Korean officials have also said there are signs that North Korea is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since September 2017. That would intensify a risky policy that experts say is aimed at forcing the United States to accept the idea of the North as a nuclear country. power and negotiate concessions from a position of strength.
China and Russia vetoed a US-led attempt in May to tighten Security Council sanctions against North Korea over its past ballistic tests, underscoring a split among the council’s permanent members that was deepened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. . Experts say North Korea’s upcoming nuclear test, which would be its seventh overall, is likely to be the first in which the Security Council does not respond with new punitive measures.
