South Korea, Japan and the United States called on all member states of the United Nations to deport North Koreans working for them, on charges of circumventing international sanctions imposed on their country and financing its missile and nuclear programs.
And the South Korean, Japanese and US envoys to North Korea – during a tripartite meeting in Seoul – saw that North Koreans working in the field of information technology abroad "continue to use false identities and nationalities" to evade UN Security Council sanctions and earn money to finance Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs, according to a statement. subscriber.
The three envoys expressed concern about the way North Korea supports these programs through "money theft and laundering," as well as information gathering through cyber activities.
The statement "strongly" condemned Pyongyang's ballistic tests, as well as its "escalatory and destabilizing rhetoric linked to the use of nuclear weapons."
The envoys noted that Pyongyang "stole" up to $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency last year 2022 alone, according to the statement.
Earlier today, Saturday, North Korea announced that it had conducted a new test of a nuclear-powered submarine, in the latest show of force on the joint exercises conducted by the United States and South Korea.
It also announced on March 23 the first test of this submarine, which it said was capable of launching a nuclear attack that could "cause a large-scale radioactive tsunami" through an underwater explosion.
After a year that witnessed a record number of weapons tests and growing nuclear threats to Pyongyang, Seoul and Washington strengthened defense cooperation and carried out the largest joint military exercises in 5 years from March 13 to 23.
In 2017, the United Nations issued a resolution giving its member states until December 2019 to deport all North Koreans working for it, mostly in China and Russia, but also in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
