SEOUL – North Korea broke diplomatic relations with Malaysia on Friday after the country’s highest court agreed to extradite a North Korean man accused of money laundering to the United States, a major blow to Washington’s efforts to stifle Pyongyang’s illicit trade.
In a decision last week, the Malaysian federal court approved the extradition of a North Korean citizen, Mun Chol-myong, rejecting his argument that the case against him was politically motivated and that he was caught in the crosshairs of diplomatic enmity between North Korea and Washington.
Washington tried to bring Mun to the United States to face criminal charges that he laundered money through shell companies and violated international sanctions by helping to send banned luxury goods from Singapore to North Korea on behalf of the Pyongyang regime. Mr. Mun was arrested in 2019 in Malaysia, where he had moved from Singapore in 2008.
Mr. Mun was the first North Korean extradited to the United States to face a criminal trial. His extradition is part of Washington’s efforts to crack down on what it described as widespread sanction evasion activities 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 exchange, which it has used to help finance its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
On Friday, North Korea identified the United States as “the behind-the-scenes manipulator and principal culprit” behind Mun’s extradition, warning that Washington will have to “pay the price”. He did not elaborate, but his announcement came a day after North Korea said it would not respond to any attempt by the new Biden government to establish a communication channel that could be used to negotiate an end to the growing nuclear weapons program in Pyongyang.
The talks failed after meetings between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and former President Donald J. Trump ended abruptly in 2019.
“It is a nefarious act and an unforgivable heavy crime,” North Korea’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement released by its official Korean Central News Agency on Friday, accusing Malaysia of offering to Mun “as a sacrifice. of the hostile US policy. ” The “complete breakdown of diplomatic relations with Malaysia” would take effect immediately.
Relations between North Korea and Malaysia were already icy after Kim’s estranged stepbrother, Kim Jong-nam, was murdered at a Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017. Two women hired by Pyongyang agents rubbed their face with the nervous agent VX, banned internationally. North Korea has denied involvement.
After the incident, the two countries expelled ambassadors from their capitals.
Breaking North Korea’s ties with Malaysia will deepen its diplomatic isolation. After the North carried out its sixth and final nuclear test in 2017, challenging United Nations resolutions, several countries, including Mexico, Spain and Kuwait, expelled North Korean ambassadors.
North Korean diplomats have also abandoned their posts abroad in recent years.
Thae Yong-ho, minister at the North Korean Embassy in London, defected to Seoul in 2016 with his wife and two children. Jo Song-gil, a North Korean diplomat who disappeared from Italy in late 2018, also ended up in Seoul, according to informed South Korean lawmakers on the matter. Ryu Kyeon-woo, a senior North Korean diplomat who fled his post in Kuwait in 2019, also appeared in South Korea.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III met with their South Korean colleagues in Seoul on Thursday. Subsequently, the two allies said they would coordinate their approaches to North Korea when the Biden government finalizes its policy review in the coming weeks. Washington said it had tried to establish a diplomatic channel since last month, but that North Korea did not respond.
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 “US backward trick” and that dialogue would only be possible after the United States to end its “hostile policy.”
During his hearing in Malaysia, Mr. Mun, who is in his 50s, denied money laundering or issuing fraudulent documents to support illicit remittances to his country of origin. His lawyer called him “a pawn caught in the rivalry between the United States and North Korea”.