N Korea more isolated than ever after killing

North Korea had few friends even before the assassination of the leader’s half-brother at a Kuala Lumpur airport last week, but the fallout from the killing looks set to further isolate the nuclear-armed state. Pyongyang and Kuala Lumpur have enjoyed relatively warm economic ties, with some bilateral trade and citizens from both countries entitled to travel to the other under a unique reciprocal visa-free deal.

Malaysia has also provided a channel between Pyongyang officials and the wider world, with Kuala Lumpur in recent years serving as a discreet meeting place for talks between the regime and the United States. But all that could come to an end following a war of words over Malaysia’s probe into the assassination of Kim Jong-Nam, which has seen Pyongyang’s envoy to Kuala Lumpur savage local police, and Malaysia recall its ambassador to the North.

Singapore cancelled its visa-free arrangement with Pyongyang last year in protest over the regime’s fourth nuclear test. Andray Abrahamian of Choson Exchange, a non-profit that provides economic policy training to North Koreans, believes Malaysia could now make a similar move. “It wouldn’t surprise me. The arrangement is already absolutely unique. North Koreans don’t need a visa to work in Mongolia, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. But the Malaysian side is the unusual thing,” he told AFP. Malaysia and North Korea are both non-aligned nations and the one-off visa deal was likely hashed out as they sought to develop business ties, he said.

Muhammad Fuad Othman, a lecturer in international politics at Universiti Utara Malaysia, said diplomats would need to be seen to respond to the killing - which Seoul has said was orchestrated by Pyongyang. “In order to pacify the West maybe there is a need to re-evaluate the free visa policy that we accord to North Koreans,” he said.

Up to 1,000 North Koreans currently work in Malaysia and, like expats from the Stalinist state worldwide, their remittances are a valuable source of foreign currency for the isolated regime.