Washington on Wednesday slapped sanctions on five North Korean officials in its first response to Pyongyang’s latest ballistic missile test and later announced it would also seek new UN sanctions.
The US Department of the Treasury said it was imposing penalties on the five officials over their roles in obtaining equipment and technology for missile programs.
In addition, the US Department of State ordered sanctions against another North Korean, a Russian man and a Russian company for their broader support of North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction activities.
Photo: AP
The treasury’s moves came just hours after Pyongyang said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un oversaw a successful flight test of a hypersonic missile on Tuesday that he claimed would greatly increase the country’s nuclear “war deterrent.”
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Wednesday night wrote on Twitter that following designations by the treasury and the state department, the US is also proposing that the UN sanctions North Korea in response to its six ballistic missile launches since September last year, “each of which were in violation of UN Security Council resolutions.”
A US diplomat said that the US is continuing to coordinate with its council partners on the proposed new sanctions.
One of the five North Koreans targeted by the treasury is based in Russia, while the others are based in China. All are accused of providing money, goods or services to North Korea’s Second Academy of Natural Sciences, which the treasury said is heavily involved in the country’s military defense programs.
“The DPRK’s [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s] latest missile launches are further evidence that it continues to advance prohibited programs despite the international community’s calls for diplomacy and denuclearization,” US Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian Nelson said.
The sanctions freeze any assets that the targets have in US jurisdictions, bar Americans from doing business with them and subject foreign companies and individuals to potential penalties for transactions with them.
Shortly before the announcement, North Korea’s state news agency reported that the latest missile launch involved a hypersonic glide vehicle, which after its release from the rocket booster demonstrated “glide jump flight” and “corkscrew maneuvering” before hitting a sea target 1,000km away.
Photographs released by the agency showed a missile mounted with a pointed cone-shaped payload soaring into the sky, while leaving a trail of orange flames, with Kim watching from a small cabin with top officials, including his sister, Kim Yo-jong.
The launch was North Korea’s second test of its purported hypersonic missile in a week, a type of weaponry it first tested in September last year, as Kim Jong-un continues a defiant push to expand his nuclear weapons capabilities in the face of international sanctions, COVID-19-pandemic-related difficulties and deadlocked diplomacy with the US.
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