North Korea Slams US Sanctions         11/06 06:11

   

   SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea on Thursday denounced the Trump 
administration's latest sanctions targeting cybercrimes that help finance its 
illicit nuclear weapons program, accusing the United States of harboring 
"wicked" hostility toward Pyongyang and vowing unspecified countermeasures.

   The statement by a North Korean vice foreign minister came after the U.S. 
Treasury Department on Tuesday imposed sanctions on eight individuals and two 
firms, including North Korean bankers, for allegedly laundering money from 
cybercrime schemes.

   The Treasury said North Korea's state-sponsored hacking schemes have stolen 
more than $3 billion in mostly digital assets over the past three years, an 
amount unmatched by any other foreign actor, and that the illicit funds help 
finance the country's nuclear weapons program. The department said North Korea 
relies on a network of banking representatives, financial institutions and 
shell companies in North Korea, China, Russia and elsewhere to launder funds 
obtained through IT worker fraud, cryptocurrency heists and sanctions evasion.

   The sanctions came even as U.S. President Donald Trump continues to express 
interest in reviving talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Their previous 
nuclear discussions collapsed in 2019 during Trump's first term amid 
disagreements over trading relief from U.S.-led sanctions on the North for 
steps to dismantle Kim's nuclear program.

   "Now that the present U.S. administration has clarified its stand to be 
hostile towards the DPRK to the last, we will also take proper measures to 
counter it with patience for any length of time," the North Korean vice 
minister, Kim Un Chol, said in a statement, invoking the North's formal name, 
the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

   He said U.S. sanctions and pressure tactics will never change the "present 
strategic situation" between the countries or alter the North's "thinking and 
viewpoint."

   Kim Jong Un has shunned any form of talks with Washington and Seoul since 
his fallout with Trump in 2019. He has since made Russia the focus of his 
foreign policy, sending thousands of troops and large amounts of military 
equipment to help fuel President Vladimir Putin's war on Ukraine, while 
pursuing an increasingly assertive strategy aimed at securing a larger role for 
North Korea in a united front against the U.S.-led West.

   In a recent speech, Kim urged Washington to drop its demand for the North to 
surrender its nukes as a precondition for resuming diplomacy. He ignored 
Trump's proposal to meet while the American president was in South Korea last 
week for meetings with world leaders attending the Asia-Pacific Economic 
Cooperation summit.