N. Korea: Sanctions damaging economy

Officials say action won’t stop nuclear weapons programs.

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — North Korea said Friday that U.S.-led international sanctions were causing “colos- sal” damage in the impoverished country, but added that it would be foolish for Washington to think the sanc-

tions would stop the coun- try’s nuclear weapons programs.

North Korean officials recently set up a commit- tee to investigate the damages that the sanctions have caused to the country’s econ- omy and the well-being of the population. The committee’s work was designed to draw international sympathy by highlighting the sufferings of North Korean children, women and elderly people, analysts said.

The sanctions are “a brutal criminal act that indiscriminately infringes upon the right to existence of the peaceful civilians,” said a spokesman of the Sanctions Damages Investigation Committee in a statement carried by the North’s official Korean Central News Agency on Friday. “The colossal amount of damage caused by these sanctions to the develop- ment of our state and the people’s livelihood is beyond anyone’s calculation.”

The North Korean state- ment came after President Donald Trump’s executive order last week, which strengthened his administration’s authority to target foreign banks that facilitate trade with North Korea. On Tuesday, the United States added eight North Korean

banks to its sanctions blacklist.

On Thursday, China said it would close business joint ventures with North Korea within 120 days, in accordance with the latest U.N. sanctions.

North Korea has endured sanctions for decades, devising ways to circumvent them.

The unidentified North Korean spokesman said Friday that it was “a foolish dream to hope that the sanctions could work” on North Korea after they had failed to stop it from becoming a nuclear weapons state.

After North Korea’s recent nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests, the Trump administration is strengthening its campaign to squeeze North Korea financially while warning that military action also is on the table.

“We call on all countries to join us in cutting all trade and financial ties with North Korea,” Acting Assistant Secretary Susan A. Thornton told a Senate committee Thursday.

Thornton said the United States had “no desire to inflict harm on the long-suffering North Korean people, whom we view as distinct from the hostile regime in Pyongyang.”

But she said sanctions were working, and urged the world to rigorously enforce them. In its two recent rounds

of sanctions adopted Aug.5 and Sept. 11, respectively, the U.N. Security Council sought to ban critical North Korean exports, like textiles, coal, iron and seafood.

In keeping with the sanctions, Kuwait, Qatar, Malaysia and Malta have stopped issuing visas to, and have begun phasing out the use of, North Korean workers, whose wages helped finance

the North Korean government and its nuclear and

missile programs, Thornton said.