N. Korea says it can't pay UN due to bank sanctions

International Desk: North Korea has said it can’t pay nearly $184,000 in dues to the United Nations because of UN sanctions that prevent the transfer of funds from Pyongyang.

North Korea’s UN Mission said sanctions imposed by the Security Council in early August on the Foreign Trade Bank of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which is in charge of international transactions, made payment impossible.

The mission said Ambassador Ja Song Nam met Undersecretary-General for Management Jan Beagle Friday afternoon to request the opening of “banking channels” to make the DPRK’s required $183,458 payment for 2018 for the UN’s regular operations and separate budgets for peacekeeping and international tribunals.

The Security Council imposed sanctions on the bank in a wide-ranging resolution following North Korea’s first successful tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States on July 3 and July 27.

It imposed tougher sanctions in response to Pyongyang’s sixth and strongest nuclear test explosion on September 3, and even tougher measures in December after its test on November 29 of its most powerful intercontinental ballistic missile yet.

The United States banned the Foreign Trade Bank from the US financial system in 2013, and the DPRK Mission blamed the Trump administration for spurring last August’s UN sanctions against the bank.

A statement from the mission, given to The Associated Press late yesterday, blamed the unilateral US sanctions and “illegal and unlawful” UN sanctions resolutions “fabricated by the US as a sponsor and its followers” for creating “enormous difficulties” and hindering normal activities such as paying UN dues.

This “shows the ulterior political objectives of the sanctions maneuvers pursued by the US and its followers and how cruel and uncivilized the sanctions are,” the DPRK said.

The mission asked the UN to provide a “lifeline” and, through its management chief, “to secure promptly the bank transaction channel through which the DPRK can pay regularly its financial contribution.”

Agencies


risingbd/Dhaka/Feb 11, 2018/Nasim