(Archived Content)
As Delivered
President Obama today signed an Executive Order establishing a new sanctions program that targets a wide range of illicit activities undertaken by the Government of North Korea. The Order gives the U.S. government new authorities to go after the arms sales, luxury goods procurement, money laundering, counterfeiting of currency and other illicit financial activities that enrich the highest echelons of the North Korean government while the North Korean people suffer.
The world by now is well aware of the North Korean government's record of illicit activity and its belligerent behavior. Today the President decided that North Korea's continued provocative actions, such as its unprovoked attack on the South Korean naval ship Cheonan in March of this year, which resulted in the ship's sinking and the deaths of 46 sailors; its test of a nuclear device and its missile launches in 2009; its violations of UN Security Council Resolutions 1718 and 1874; and its illicit and deceptive practices in international markets justify additional sanctions.
The destructive course that the North Korean government is charting is facilitated by a lifeline of cash generated through a range of illicit activities. North Korea's government helps maintain its authority by placating privileged elites with money and perks, such as luxury goods like jewelry, luxury cars, and yachts. Not only do these transactions contravene UNSCR 1718, they are unconscionable in light of the fact that many of North Korea's people live in dire poverty. The North Korean government receives millions of dollars every year from arms sales also outlawed by UN Security Council Resolutions. North Korea has been caught several times making these illicit arms sales, including to Iran and Syria. The North Korean government also benefits from illicit activities, such as drug trafficking, counterfeiting U.S. currency, and selling counterfeit cigarettes. All of this activity makes up a crucial portion of the North Korean government's revenues.
These activities are carried out by a global financial network that generates this income and procures the luxury goods for the government of North Korea. That network is addressed directly by the President's actions today. The President has identified for sanctions a key piece of this network, Office 39, a secretive branch of the North Korean government that manages slush funds and raises money for the leadership, including by trafficking drugs.
Also targeted for sanctions today by the President are key elements of North Korea's infrastructure for importing and exporting conventional arms: Green Pine Associated Corporation, and its parent, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, and the Bureau's commander, Lt. Gen. Kim Yong Chol. Green Pine is responsible for approximately half of the arms and related materiel North Korea exports, and has taken over many of the activities of another North Korean entity, KOMID, which was sanctioned by the U.S. for its involvement in proliferation-related activities in 2005 and listed for sanctions by the United Nations in 2009.
These measures are not directed at the people of North Korea, who, as Secretary Clinton has said, have suffered too long due to the misguided priorities of their government. Instead, the financial measures the President took today, as well as additional actions we will take in the weeks and months to come, are aimed at disrupting North Korea's efforts to engage in illicit activities and its ability to surreptitiously move its money by deceiving banks and smuggling cash worldwide.
The activities we are targeting in this new sanctions program are violations of UN Security Council Resolutions or other international norms. By naming the individuals and entities involved in these activities, we will be excluding them from any access to the US financial system and, at the same time, we will be assisting responsible businesses and financial institutions around the world that are trying to protect themselves from illicit North Korean activities. We will continue to take such actions and also to share relevant information with the private sector and regulators around the world. As we have seen when we have taken similar actions in the past, financial measures such as these that focus on illicit conduct are highly effective in garnering the support of the private sector, which is already quite wary of North Korean-related business and the reputational and other risks it poses.
We are also announcing actions today under already-existing authorities to further target North Korea's proliferation activities. The State Department and Treasury Department have identified five entities and three individuals for sanctions under Executive Order 13382, our proliferation Executive Order. These entities include two trading firms - Korea Taesong Trading Co. and Korea Heunjin Trading Co. - that act on behalf of North Korean arms dealer KOMID in deals involving Iran and Syria.
Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, Bob Einhorn, is here as well, and he will make some comments and explain in further detail, if he wishes, the actions taken by the State Department today.
The overall effect of the actions we are taking and the new program announcing by the President today is that North Korea's illicit activities will face even greater scrutiny by banks and firms worldwide. North Korea's leadership must choose the path it wishes to take: whether it will end its isolation by living up to its international obligations and responsibilities or pursue a path that will subject it to ever-increasing pressure.
Use featured image
Off