KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) – North Korean diplomats vacated their embassy in Malaysia and prepared to leave the country on Sunday after the two nations severed diplomatic relations in a fight over the extradition of a North Korean crime suspect to the United States.
The North Korean flag and embassy signage have been removed from facilities in a Kuala Lumpur suburb. Two buses transported the diplomats and their families to the airport, where they were seen checking in for a flight to Shanghai.
Ties between North Korea and Malaysia have been virtually frozen since the 2017 murder of the estranged stepbrother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Two days after Kuala Lumpur extradited a North Korean to the United States to face money laundering charges, a furious North Korea announced on Friday that it was ending ties with Malaysia. Malaysia denounced the decision and, in an exchanged response, gave North Korean diplomats 48 hours to leave.
Kim Yu Song, the business manager and advisor in Kuala Lumpur, said Malaysia “has committed an unforgivable crime”. Echoing Pyongyang’s previous statement, he accused Malaysia of being subservient to the United States and part of an American conspiracy to “isolate and suffocate” its country.
“The Malaysian authority ended up handing our citizen over to the United States, thereby destroying the foundations of bilateral relations based on respect for sovereignty,” he said in a short statement outside the embassy, before heading to the airport.
North Korea called the money laundering charges “absurd fabrication and (a) pure conspiracy” orchestrated by the United States and warned that Washington “will pay the price”.
Some experts say cutting ties with Malaysia was North Korea’s way of showing anger at President Joe Biden’s government, without compromising a possible return to nuclear talks with Washington.
North Korea has insisted that it will not engage in negotiations with Washington unless it abandons what Pyongyang considers a “hostile” policy. But experts say North Korea will try to return to diplomacy to find ways to get relief from sanctions and revive its dying economy.
Malaysia defended its Mun Chol Myong extradition measure, saying it was only carried out after all legal proceedings were exhausted. A lower court ruled that Mun could be extradited after rejecting his appeal, claiming that the US charges were politically motivated.
Mun, who lived in Malaysia for a decade and was arrested in May 2019, denied US accusations that he was involved in supplying Singapore’s luxury goods to North Korea in violation of UN sanctions while working in the city -state. He denied money laundering through shell companies and issuing fraudulent documents to support illicit remittances to his country.
North Korea has long used Malaysia as a crucial economic center, where it manages trade, labor exports and some illicit businesses in Southeast Asia, but its relations suffered major setbacks with the assassination of Kim Jong Nam in 2017.
Two women – one Indonesian and one Vietnamese – were charged with colluding with four North Koreans to murder Kim Jong Nam by smearing his face with VX nerve agent. The four North Koreans fled Malaysia on the day Kim died. The two women were later released.
Malaysian authorities never officially accused North Korea of involvement in Kim’s death, but prosecutors made it clear during the trial that they suspected a North Korean connection.
North Korea denied that the victim was Kim Jong Nam and contested that it had any role in the man’s death. North Korea’s longtime observers believe Kim Jong Un ordered his brother ‘