North Korea said Friday that financial sanctions imposed by Washington against Kim Jong-Un amounted to a “declaration of war”.
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While North Korea urged the United States to retract the sanctions, it also said that it will handle all issues “arising in the relations with the U.S.” under wartime law, KCNA reported, quoting North Korea’s Foreign Ministry.
“This is the worst hostility and an open declaration of war against (North Korea) as it has gone far beyond the confrontation over the human rights issue”, it said, according to Reuters.
A Foreign Ministry statement, carried by Pyongyang’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), said on Thursday that the new United States sanctions targeting the country’s leader Kim Jong-un amount to “an open declaration of a war”.
Schoolchildren stand beside North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as he arrives to attend “We Are the Happiest in the World”, a performance of schoolchildren to celebrate the 70th founding anniversary of the Korean Children’s Union, in this undated photo released by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency in Pyongyang on June 8.
“As a result of today’s actions, any property or interest in property of those designated by (Office of Foreign Assets Control) within USA jurisdiction is frozen”, the Treasury Department said.
The Pyongyang regime, in its first reaction to this announcement in Washington, called the usa to immediately reverse these sanctions. “Every lever and channel for diplomatic contact between the DPRK and the US will be cut off at once in case the USA refuses to accept our demand”.
The country describes its nuclear capabilities as a deterrent against hostile USA measures, including the stationing of thousands of U.S. soldiers in South Korea and Japan, which Pyongyang argues is part of a plot to topple the government. The agency even calls the U.S. decision a “despicable crime”.
North Korea’s recently proposed preconditions for denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula are nothing but a “deceitful tactic” to undermine ongoing global efforts to enforce sanctions on the communist country, the foreign ministry here said Thursday.
Senior U.S administration officials said the new US sanctions showed the administration’s greater focus on human rights in North Korea, an issue long secondary to Washington’s efforts to halt Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile programs.
North Korea has already been sanctioned heavily because of its nuclear weapons program. The cooperation of China and Russian Federation would be needed for any further designations.
Authorities in Washington for the first time identified other top officials directly involved in rights abuses, including Choe Pu Il, the minister of people’s security, Ri Song Chol, a senior official in the Ministry of People’s Security, and Kang Song Nam, a bureau director with the Ministry of State Security.
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The U.S. Treasury Department identified Kim’s date of birth as January 8, 1984, a rare official confirmation of his birthday.
