U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken Friday introduced new financial sanctions on North Korea after the remoted nation launched a sequence of ballistic missiles he known as “unprecedented in their pace, scale and scope.”
North Korea has performed six ballistic missile assessments within the final 12 days, with the newest being Thursday, when two short-range ballistic missiles (SRBM) had been launched as diplomats on the U.N. Security Council had been locked in debate over how to reply to the launch of one other missile over Japan two days earlier.
In a press release Friday, Blinken stated this yr alone, North Korea – or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), has launched 41 ballistic missiles, six of them intercontinental ballistic missiles.
In response, he introduced the United States is imposing sanctions on “two individuals and three entities for activities related to the exportation of petroleum to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which directly support the development of DPRK weapons programs and its military.”
Blinken stated the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assests Control (OFAC) is designating the New Eastern Shipping Co Ltd., together with the people Kwek Kee Seng and Chen Shih Huan, for having participated within the switch or supply of refined petroleum merchandise to the DPRK.
In the assertion, Blinken stated via the sanctions, “the United States is sending a transparent message that we are going to proceed to take actions in opposition to those that help the event and sustainment of the DPRK’s army and weapons arsenal.’