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Fresh U.S. and Japanese economic sanctions against North Korea are becoming more likely with signs that the reclusive country may be preparing for a nuclear test. A government official in Seoul said Friday the U.S. regards Pyongyang¡¯s outrage at earlier financial sanctions as feigned, implying that the freezing of the North¡¯s accounts in a Macau-based bank last September may have just been the first step.
Peter Beck, a North Korea expert at the International Crisis Group in Seoul, says the next target of U.S. investigations will be North Korea's accounts in Russia. He added the Bush administration was very pleased with the results of the investigation in Asia. Beck said the U.S. chased accounts and financial transactions in Asia, then in Europe, and now for the final stage will be moving on to Russia.
After having its accounts in Macau frozen, North Korea attempted to open accounts in Vietnam, Mongolia and Hong Kong but was turned down everywhere. Increasingly desperate, the Stalinist state turned to Luxemburg and Germany but was rebuffed there too. "The U.S. has the ability to put all kinds of pressure on European banks,¡± a government official here said.
A diplomatic source in Seoul said the dissipation of counterfeit dollar notes that triggered the earlier sanctions got started in Russia. During the investigation of the highly accurate so-called supernotes circulating in Europe, the U.S. uncovered meetings between former Irish Workers Party leader Sean Garland and North Korean officials in Russia.
In Japan, direct and indirect exports to North Korea are under investigation. Early this month, Japanese police arrested a Japanese citizen for selling a freeze dryer to North Korea that could be used in the production of biological weapons. Ten days later, police raided Mitutoyo Corporation accusing it of shipping three-dimensional measuring devices that can be used in the production of nuclear weapons to Malaysia. The Japanese press reported the final stop for these goods was North Korea.
"In both cases, the suspects had doctored the documents to make it look like the buyers were from a third country," a government official said. "It looks like the Japanese government is currently trying to track down the third-country routes into North Korea." If the investigation gets serious, there is a possibility that the industry related to the pro-Pyongyang General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryeon) may be included in blanket sanctions. Larry Niksch, a specialist in Asian Affairs with the U.S. Congressional Research Service, said recently Japan was likely to put pressure on North Korea by intercepting remittances from the organization to the North and freezing its assets in Japan. In the event that the anti-North faction leader, Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, becomes prime minister, the trend in that direction is likely to intensify.
Nam Sung-wook, a North Korea specialist at Korea University said the North is caught between a rock and a hard place. It can either continue to suffer the economic sanctions or go through with the test, which could spell the end for the regime. "If they proceed as they have in the past and go ahead with the nuclear test, they will have passed the point of no return,¡± he said. "They have to be prepared to be disavowed by South Korea and China."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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