[USFK Forums] Pyongyang vows to help fight on financial crimes [JoongAng]

[C. Y. Lee]

Uploaded by C. Y. Lee on Friday, February 10, 2006

Pyongyang vows to help fight on financial crimes

February 10, 2006 ㅡ North Korea promised yesterday to join international efforts to fight financial crimes amid a drumbeat of accusations that it was counterfeiting American $100 bills.

Pyongyang’s Foreign Ministry issued the statement through the state-run Korea Central News Agency. A ministry spokesman quoted by the agency said Pyongyang would “actively join the international actions against money laundering,” adding that the government had a consistent policy of objecting to all financial crimes.

But Pyongyang denied Washington’s accusations that the country has been involved in such illegal activities - or more precisely, that anyone could make a case against it. “There is no evidence proving the issue of counterfeit notes or money laundering” by North Korea, the spokesman said.

The Foreign Ministry spokesman said North Korea was sympathetic to U.S. efforts to defend its currency and national interests. “What bothers us is that the United States is using those efforts to oppose the North Korean system.” he said, referring to sanctions that the United States has slapped on North Korean trading agencies and a Macao bank used by the North for many of its international transactions.

But he continued to link those sanctions to the deadlocked six-nation negotiations to separate the North from its nuclear weapons and programs. The statement warned, “A peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue through dialogue will be difficult without changing the U.S. policy.

“We have been living under the U.S. sanctions for a long time,” the statement continued, “but we are putting such importance on Washington’s lifting of recently imposed financial sanctions because that will clearly show us if the United States actually has the intention to change its policy.”

Washington officials have said recently they wanted action, not words, by the North, before they would consider an end to the sanctions.


by Ser Myo-ja



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