[FONT="]Seoul Imposes Sanctions on N. Korea [/FONT]
[FONT="]By CHOE SANG-HUN[/FONT]
[FONT="]Published: June 9, 2009 [/FONT]
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SEOUL,
South Korea —
South Korea imposed its first financial sanctions on North Korean companies, officials said Tuesday, taking a symbolic action that could anger the Communist regime while bolstering a joint front with the United States as the allies seek to punish the North for its recent nuclear test.[/FONT]
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North Korea continued its harsh rhetoric on Tuesday when the government-run newspaper, Minju Joson, warned that the regime can
use its nuclear program not only for defense but also as “a merciless offensive means.” [/FONT]
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The escalating tensions began hurting investor sentiments. On Tuesday,
a South Korean fur-coat maker became the first company to announce it was withdrawing from the Kaesong joint industrial complex in North Korea, a sign that deteriorating inter-Korean relations and tensions over the North’s recent nuclear test were jeopardizing the complex, once hailed as a model of future economic cooperation between the two Koreas. [/FONT]
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The
financial sanctions against three North Korean firms, which became effective on June 1, were disclosed on Tuesday, a day after North Korea sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and unspecified “hostile acts.” [/FONT]
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The families of the journalists,
Laura Ling and Yuna Lee, urged North Korea to grant them clemency.[/FONT]
[FONT="]“We remain hopeful that the governments of the United States and North Korea can come to an agreement that will result in the release,” the families said in a statement.[/FONT]
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American officials said that the harsh sentences were likely to be used as a negotiating ploy by the North as it tries to avoid new sanctions being worked out at the
United Nations Security Council in response to the nuclear test two weeks ago. Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton stressed that the reporters’ case and Washington’s efforts to punish North Korea for its nuclear test are “entirely separate matters.”[/FONT]
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Still, American officials appeared to be weighing whether to send a special envoy in a high-profile effort to seek the release of the two journalists. The two most likely candidates are former Vice President
Al Gore, whose Current TV channel employs the two journalists, and Gov.
Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who has visited North Korea several times and helped negotiate the release of two Americans in the 1990s. [/FONT]
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Asked Monday if Washington will send an envoy, Mrs. Clinton said her government is “pursuing every possible approach” to win their release. [/FONT]
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On Tuesday, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance in Seoul said that it has banned trading with three North Korean firms —
Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation, Tanchon Commercial Bank, and Korea Ryongbong General Corporation — and will freeze their assets. But officials said that these firms have no trading with South Korea or assets in the South. [/FONT]
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The
Security Council had earlier targeted those three North Korean entities when it reaffirmed
financial restrictions against the North after its rocket launch on April 5. [/FONT]
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Until now, while voicing support for Security Council decisions,
South Korea had avoided implementing such symbolic but politically sensitive sanctions for fear they would anger Pyongyang. That stance began shifting in May when
South Korea announced it could search North Korean ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction in its territorial waters as part of an American-led global arms embargo.[/FONT]
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Ms. Ling, 32, and Ms. Lee, 36, were arrested March 17 on the China-North Korea border. [/FONT]
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“There is a serious doubt that these journalists had a fair trial because the legal proceedings have not been transparent,” said Kay Seok, a Seoul-based researcher for
Human Rights Watch. “It’s not clear whether the North Korean government has honored the defendants’ right to choose their own lawyers, and whether they had the benefit of courtroom translators.”[/FONT]
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Analysts in Seoul doubted that the journalists would spend time at one of the North’s notorious labor camps, where North Korean defectors said malnutrition and beatings were rampant. Rather, they said the journalists could be held at a “sanitized” prison that Pyongyang allowed international human rights officials to visit in the mid-1990s.[/FONT]
