In a Friday joint statement, the U.S., South Korea, and Japan voiced serious worry over North Korea’s “malicious” cyber actions to promote its weapons programs.
Officials and analysts in the U.S. and its allies claim North Korea’s weapons programs have relied on cryptocurrency cash stolen by hackers.
South Korea’s nuclear envoy met with U.S. and Japanese colleagues in Seoul this week to criticize North Korea’s weapons tests.
“We underline with worry that abroad DPRK IT employees are exploiting fabricated identities and nationalities” to circumvent U.N. sanctions and fund missile programs, the envoys said.
The statement urged U.N. member states to comply with Security Council resolutions to repatriate North Korean workers on their soil, saying, “We are also deeply concerned about how the DPRK supports these programmes by stealing and laundering funds as well as gathering information through malicious cyber activities.”
The Korean Peninsula is tense. Since March, the U.S. and South Korean militaries have conducted annual springtime drills.
In response to such military drills, Pyongyang has increased its military actions. For example, it showed miniaturized nuclear warheads and launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that could hit anywhere in the U.S.
While those exercises and testing continue, ugly language has ensued. On Thursday, North Korea accused Washington and Seoul of inciting nuclear war with military drills.
South Korea’s leading nuclear negotiator, Kim Gunn, called North Korea’s nuclear aspirations “a self-destructive boomerang” that will destroy its economy.
“North Korea is misguiding its people to believe that nuclear weapons are a magic wand that can cure all its problems,” Kim said in his Friday meeting with U.S. and Japanese officials.
Japan extended its trade ban on North Korea for two years on Friday, with humanitarian exclusions.
