By Hyonhee Shin
SEOUL (Reuters) -North Korea is poised to shut as many as a dozen embassies together with in Spain, Hong Kong, and a number of international locations in Africa, in line with media reviews and analysts, in a transfer that would see almost 25 % of Pyongyang’s missions shut worldwide.
North Korea’s current closing of its diplomatic missions was an indication that the reclusive nation is struggling to earn money abroad due to worldwide sanctions, South Korea’s unification ministry mentioned on Tuesday.
On Monday, North Korean state media outlet KCNA mentioned the nation’s ambassadors paid “farewell” visits to Angolan and Ugandan leaders final week, and native media in each African international locations reported the shutdown of the North’s embassies there.
Each Angola and Uganda have cast pleasant ties with North Korea because the Nineteen Seventies, sustaining navy cooperation and offering uncommon sources of overseas forex resembling statue-building tasks.
The embassy closings set the stage for what might be “one of many nation’s greatest overseas coverage shakeups in a long time”, with implications for diplomatic engagement, humanitarian work within the remoted nation, in addition to the flexibility to generate illicit income, wrote Chad O’Carroll, founding father of the North Korea-focused web site NK Professional.
Greater than a dozen missions might shut, possible due to worldwide sanctions, a development of Pyongyang’s disengaging globally and the possible weakening of the North Korean financial system, he mentioned in a report on Wednesday.
Seoul’s unification ministry, which handles inter-Korean affairs, mentioned the pullout mirrored the impression of worldwide sanctions geared toward curbing funding for the North’s nuclear and missile applications.
“They look like withdrawing as their overseas forex incomes enterprise has stumbled because of the worldwide neighborhood’s strengthening of sanctions, making it troublesome to take care of the embassies any longer,” the ministry mentioned in an announcement. “This is usually a signal of North Korea’s troublesome financial scenario, the place it’s troublesome to take care of even minimal diplomatic relations with historically pleasant international locations.”
North Korea has formal relations with 159 international locations, however had 53 diplomatic missions abroad, together with three consulates and three consultant workplaces, till it pulled out of Angola and Uganda, in line with the ministry.
North Korea may even shut down its embassy in Spain, with its mission in Italy dealing with affairs within the neighbouring nation, South Korea’s Yonhap information company reported.
Correspondence with the Spanish Communist Get together launched on the social gathering’s web site confirmed the North Korean embassy asserting the closing in a letter dated Oct. 26.
The North’s embassy in Madrid was within the highlight after members of a bunch searching for the overthrow of North Korean chief Kim Jong Un staged a break-in in 2019, throughout which they certain and gagged workers earlier than driving off with computer systems and different gadgets.
Pyongyang denounced the incident as a “grave breach of sovereignty and terrorist assault,” and accused the USA of not investigating the group totally and refusing to extradite its chief.
(Reporting by Hyonhee Shin; Extra reporting by Hyunsu Yim, Soo-hyang Choi, and Josh Smith; Modifying by Gerry Doyle and Ed Davies)
