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SEOUL – North Korea severed diplomatic ties with Malaysia on Friday after that country’s highest court agreed to extradite a North Korean man accused of money laundering to the United States, a coup Major state in Washington’s efforts to quell Pyongyang’s illicit trade.
In a ruling last week, the Malaysian federal court approved the extradition of a North Korean citizen, Mun Chol-myong, dismissing his argument that the case against him was politically motivated and that he was caught up in the fuse of diplomatic enmity between North Korea and North Korea. Washington.
Washington has sought to bring Mr. Mun to the United States to face criminal charges that he laundered money through shell companies and violated international sanctions by helping to ship banned luxury goods from Singapore. to North Korea on behalf of the Pyongyang regime. Mr. Mun was arrested in 2019 in Malaysia, where he left Singapore in 2008.
Mr. Mun was the first North Korean extradited to the United States to stand a criminal trial. His extradition is part of Washington’s effort to crack down on what it has described as widespread sanctions circumvention activity by North Korean businessmen and diplomats. Over the years, the United Nations Security Council has imposed a series of increasingly severe sanctions on North Korea, seeking to strangle the country’s access to foreign currency, which it has used to help fund. its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
North Korea on Friday identified the United States as “the behind-the-scenes manipulator and main culprit” behind Mr. Mun’s extradition, warning Washington will “have to pay the price.” He did not give details, but his announcement came a day after North Korea said it would not respond to any attempt by the new Biden administration to establish a communication channel that could be used to negotiate. the end of Pyongyang’s growing nuclear weapons program.
Negotiations collapsed after meetings between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and former President Donald J. Trump abruptly ended in 2019.
“It is a nefarious act and an unforgivably heavy crime,” the North Korean Foreign Ministry said on Friday in a statement released by its official Korean Central News Agency on Friday, accusing Malaysia of offering Mr. Mun “in sacrifice of the hostile policies of the United States.” The “total severance of diplomatic relations with Malaysia” would take effect immediately.
Relations between North Korea and Malaysia were already frosty after Mr. Kim’s half-brother, Kim Jong-nam, was murdered at a Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017. Two women hired by Pyongyang agents coated their faces with the internationally banned nerve agent VX. . North Korea has denied any involvement.
After the incident, the two countries expelled ambassadors from their capitals.
The severing of relations between North Korea and Malaysia will exacerbate its diplomatic isolation. After the North carried out its sixth and final nuclear test in 2017, in defiance of United Nations resolutions, several countries, including Mexico, Spain and Kuwait, expelled North Korean ambassadors.
North Korean diplomats have also deserted their posts abroad in recent years.
Thae Yong-ho, Minister of the North Korean Embassy in London, defected to Seoul in 2016 with his wife and two sons. Jo Song-gil, a senior North Korean diplomat who disappeared from Italy in late 2018, also ended up in Seoul, according to South Korean lawmakers briefed on the matter. Ryu Kyeon-woo, a senior North Korean diplomat who fled his posting to Kuwait in 2019, also visited South Korea.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met their South Korean counterparts in Seoul on Thursday. Subsequently, the two allies said they would coordinate their approaches to North Korea as the Biden administration finalizes its review of its policy in the coming weeks. Washington said it had tried to establish a diplomatic channel for the past month, but North Korea had not responded.
Choe Son-hui, North Korea’s first deputy foreign minister, said on Thursday that North Korea did not feel the need to respond to the “American delay trick” and that dialogue would only be possible. ‘after the United States ended its “hostile policy”. . “
During his hearing in Malaysia, Mr. Mun, who is in his 50s, denied money laundering or issuing fraudulent documents to justify illicit shipments to his home country. His lawyer called him “a pawn caught in the rivalry between the United States and North Korea”.
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