Pyongyang sends letter of protest over US sanctions
SEOUL: North Korea has demanded the extradition of the South’s spy chief, a Chinese businessman, and unnamed agents of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) over a supposed conspiracy to assassinate leader Kim Jong Un.
Last week, Pyongyang’s powerful Ministry of State Security said it had foiled a plot by the US and South Korean spy agencies to kill Kim using a biochemical weapon.
The accusations came amid tensions over the North’s nuclear and missile programs and with Washington considering whether to re-designate Pyongyang as a state sponsor of terrorism.
That follows the February killing of Kim’s estranged half-brother Kim JongNam by two women using the banned nerve agent VX — a murder widely blamed on Pyongyang.
The North’s Central Public Prosecutors Office said it was opening the prosecution of those responsible for what it called “state-sponsored terrorism” against Kim Jong-Un.
It named South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) Director Lee Byung-Ho, an NIS team director surnamed Han, NIS agent Jo Ki-Chol, and Chinese businessman Xu Guanghai as suspects, along with “masterminds in the CIA.”
“We urge the relevant authorities to immediately detect, arrest and hand over” the wanted individuals, who were “targets of due heavy punishment,” it said in a statement carried by Pyongyang’s state media.
“None of the brutal perpetrators of hideous state-sponsored terrorism aiming at the removal of the North Korea’s supreme leadership will survive on this planet,” it added.
Rights groups accuse North Korea of widespread abuses, including an absence of fair trials.
North Korea is technically still at war with the South and has no diplomatic rela- tions with the US, but China is its sole major ally.
Xu was described as director-general of the Qingdao NAZCA Trade Co.
Checks by AFP on Chinese databases show a company of that name was founded on March 7 this year, with Xu named as its legal representative.
A spokesman for the NIS said the South’s spy agency had no information about the alleged assassination plot.
Pyongyang has said a North Korean citizen named only as Kim was bribed and blackmailed to carry out the attack.
But any attempt on Kim would be extremely difficult to pull off due to super- tight security around him and Pyongyang’s extensive surveillance of its own population.
Also on Friday, a North Korean parliamentary committee sent a rare letter of protest to the US House of Representatives over its new package of tougher sanctions.
The sanctions were condemned as a “heinous act against humanity” by the foreign affairs committee of the North’s Supreme People’s Assembly, according to a state media report.
It was not immediately clear how the protest was conveyed — if it was sent by mail or how it was addressed — since North Korea and the US have no diplomatic relations and virtually no official channels of communication.
The Republican-led House overwhelmingly voted on May 4 to impose the new sanctions, which target North Korea’s shipping industry and use of what the bill called “slave labor.”
It is not unusual for Pyongyang to condemn Washington’s moves to censure it, but direct protests to Congress are exceptionally rare.
Pyongyang normally expresses its displeasure with Washington through statements by the Foreign Ministry or other institutions, or through representatives at its UN mission in New York.
Meanwhile, a senior North Korean Foreign Ministry official reportedly flew to Oslo, Norway, to meet with former US diplomats and scholars in what is known as “track 2” talks on bilateral issues.
The talks, which are held intermittently, are an informal opportunity for the two sides to exchange opinions and concerns.
The US Senate would need to approve the new sanctions next, before they could be implemented.