Chinese President Xi Jinping met a visiting North Korean delegation on Wednesday, state media reported, in an apparent attempt by Pyongyang to mend frayed ties with its powerful neighbour.
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The removal of USA troops from the Korean Peninsula and direct talks with a US president dovetail nicely with objectives Pyongyang has held for years – though undoubtedly for different reasons than the American real estate magnate’s.
Crucially, the US Treasury also prohibited the use of third parties’ US correspondent accounts to process transactions for North Korean financial institutions.
Council members acted in response to what Pyongyang claimed was its first hydrogen bomb test on January 6 and the launch of a satellite on a rocket on February 7, which was condemned by much of the world as a test of banned missile technology.
The United States on Wednesday declared North Korea a “primary money laundering concern”, and moved to further block its ability to use the USA and world financial systems to fund its weapons programs. “Today’s action is a further step toward severing banking relationships with North Korea (DPRK)”.
The North wants the U.S. troops to leave because it sees them as a direct threat to the regime’s security and has long wanted talks with Washington, ostensibly towards a peace treaty to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which would boost its worldwide status and acknowledge that North Korea is a nuclear state.
Treasury is now calling the country a “primary money laundering concern”.
The video was broadcast just after analyst reports said North Korea had made a fourth failed attempt in two months to test-launch the Musudan-a missile created to strike at targets as distant as Guam and the Philippines. But relations have soured following Pyongyang’s internationally-condemned nuclear tests, with Beijing supporting United Nations sanctions against the hermit kingdom.
The editorial also mentioned Trump saying last month he was willing to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to discuss Pyongyang’s nuclear program.
North Korea has backed presumptive US Republican nominee Donald Trump, with a propaganda website praising him as “a prescient presidential candidate” who can liberate Americans living under daily fear of nuclear attack by the North.
“These repeated attempted launches are in grave violation of the DPRK’s worldwide obligations under United Nations Security Council resolutions”, the 15-nation UN council said in a statement.
The 15-member UN Security Council in a joint statement Wednesday strongly condemned three recently failed North Korean missile launches and demanded Pyongyang “refrain from further actions, including nuclear tests, in violation of the relevant Security Council resolutions”.
According to a ministry official, Seoul received no description from the USA of any particular country to be targeted.
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“The South Korean government highly evaluates the measure”.
