US issues sanctions targeting North Korean weapons of mass destruction program

The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on two Russian banks, a North Korean company and a person it accused of supporting North Korea’s weapons of mass destruction program, increasing pressure on Pyongyang over its renewed ballic missile launches.
The latest American move came a day after China and Russia vetoed a US-led push to impose more United Nations sanctions on North Korea over its ballic missile launches, publicly splitting the UN Security Council for the first time since it started punishing Pyongyang in 2006.
The vetoes came despite what the United States says was a sixth test of an intercontinental ballic missile (ICBM) North Korea this year and signs that Pyongyang is preparing to conduct its first nuclear test since 2017.
The US Treasury Department in a statement said it targeted Air Koryo Trading Corp as well as Russian financial institutions the Far Eastern Bank and Bank Sputnik for contributing to procurement and revenue generation for North Korean organisations.Best of Express PremiumPremiumPremiumPremiumPremium
Washington also designated Jong Yong Nam, a Belarus-based representative of an organisation subordinate to the North Korea Second Academy of Natural Sciences (SANS), who Washington said has supported North Korean organisations linked to the development of ballic missiles.

The #USAmbassador To The UN called #NorthKorea‘s intercontinental ballic missile launches a dangerous, disappointing, & likely to fuel Pyongyang’s program to develop nuclear-capable missile systems. #SEAToday #SEATodayNews #Jakarta #Indonesia #UN #ZhangJun #missile pic.twitter.com/XJWmdtNkGJ
— SEA Today News (@seatodaynews) May 28, 2022
North Korea’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The United States will continue to implement and enforce exing sanctions while urging the DPRK (North Korea) to return to a diplomatic path and abandon its pursuit of weapons of mass destruction and ballic missiles,” the Treasury’s Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in the statement.
China has been urging the United States to take action — including lifting some unilateral sanctions — to entice Pyongyang to resume talks stalled since 2019, after three failed summits between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-US President Donald Trump. The United States has said Pyongyang should not be rewarded.
Late on Friday, the top diplomats of South Korea, Japan and the United States issued a joint statement saying North Korea had “significantly increased the pace and scale of its ballic missile launches since September 2021”.
In the statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, South Korean Foreign Miner Park Jin and Japanese Foreign Miner Yoshimasa Hayashi urged Pyongyang to “return to negotiations.”