Seoul, Washington and Tokyo yesterday urged UN member states to repatriate North Koreans working overseas, saying they continue to evade sanctions abroad to finance Pyongyang’s unlawful weapons program.
North Korea was also engaged in “malicious cyber activities” that supported its military expansion, representatives of the three countries said in a joint statement.
The nuclear-armed country has long made a fortune from the army of citizens it sends abroad to work, mostly in neighboring China and Russia, but also in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Photo: AFP
Under a UN Security Council resolution unanimously approved in 2017, member states had until December 2019 to send back all North Koreans working in their countries.
However, Seoul, Tokyo and Washington’s special envoys for North Korea yesterday said the country’s overseas workers are continuing to help fund Pyongyang’s increasingly aggressive provocations, following a trilateral meeting in the South Korean capital.
Overseas North Korean information technology workers “continue using forged identities and nationalities to evade [UN] sanctions and earn income abroad that funds the DPRK’s unlawful weapon of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs,” the envoys said in a joint statement, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name.
“We are also deeply concerned about how the DPRK supports these programs by stealing and laundering funds, as well as gathering information through malicious cyber activities,” they said.
The envoys accused Pyongyang of stealing up to US$1.7 billion in cryptocurrency last year.
In 2019, analysts said Beijing and Moscow — Pyongyang’s key allies — were issuing North Korean workers with alternative visas to ensure a continued supply of cheap labor.
North Korea last year declared itself an “irreversible” nuclear power, effectively ending the possibility of denuclearization talks.
North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un ordered his military to intensify drills last month to prepare for a “real war.”
In recent weeks, North Korea has tested what state media has claimed was an underwater, nuclear-capable drone, and carried out the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile.
“We strongly condemn the DPRK’s repeated ballistic missile launches, as well as its escalatory and destabilizing rhetoric related to the use of nuclear weapons,” the envoys said.
“We express deep regret that the DPRK continues to ignore the hardship of its people, choosing instead to pour its scarce resources into its [weapons of mass destruction] and ballistic missile programs in clear violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions,” they said.
PALAU LAUNCHES: The source said that Taiwanese military personnel traveled to Palau, where a US brigade watched their work amid plans for a defense network The military last month participated in live-fire launches of MM-104F Patriot (PAC-3) missiles under US observation in an undisclosed location in Palau, a step forward in a US-led plan to create a joint defense missile system in the first island chain, a source said on condition of anonymity. The PAC-3 is the mainstay surface-to-air missile of the US, NATO and democratic nations in East Asia, the source said, adding that it has never been live-tested within Taiwan’s borders, the source said. The proximity of Taiwan to China and China’s close surveillance of the nation’s borders and nearby sea zones is a significant
IN MOURNING: Tsai visited the site and spoke with family members of those killed, while all the major presidential candidates said they would temporarily halt campaigning A fire and subsequent explosions at a golf ball factory at Pingtung Technology Industrial Park (屏東科技產業園區) killed at least seven people, including four firefighters, and injured 98, while three were still missing, authorities said yesterday. The blaze at Launch Technologies Co’s (明揚國際) plant on Jingjian Road raged for more than 12 hours after it started at about 5pm on Friday, officials said. The Pingtung County Fire Bureau early yesterday used large excavators to search for missing people, while family members waited at the scene. Pingtung County Fire Bureau Director Hsu Mei-hsueh (許美雪) said the bureau received a call about the fire at 5:31pm
DETERRENCE: The president on Thursday is to launch the first indigenous submarine, which is to enter sea trials next month before being delivered to the navy next year Taiwan hopes to deploy at least two new, domestically developed submarines by 2027, and possibly equip later models with missiles to bolster its deterrence against the Chinese navy and protect key supply lines, the head of the program said. Taiwan has made the Indigenous Submarine Program a key part of an ambitious project to modernize its armed forces as Beijing stages almost daily military exercises. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), who initiated the program when she took office in 2016, is expected to launch the first of eight new submarines on Thursday under a plan that has drawn on expertise and technology from
FISHING FUROR: The latest spat was sparked by a floating barrier that was found across the entrance of Scarborough Shoal during a resupply mission to fishers Beijing yesterday warned Manila not to “stir up trouble” after the Philippine Coast Guard said it removed a floating barrier at a disputed reef that was allegedly deployed by China to block Filipino fishers from the area. Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島) in the South China Sea has long been a source of tension between the nations. China seized the ring of reefs from the Philippines in 2012 and has since deployed patrol boats. The latest spat was sparked by a 300m floating barrier that was found across the entrance of the shoal last week during a routine Philippine government resupply mission