U.N. council to vote on blacklisting more North Koreans: diplomats

The United Nations Security Council will vote on Friday on a U.S. and Chinese proposal to blacklist more North Korean individuals and entities after the country’s repeated ballistic missile launches, diplomats said on Thursday.

The draft resolution, seen by Reuters, would sanction four entities, including the Koryo Bank and Strategic Rocket Force of the Korean People’s Army, and 14 people, including Cho Il U, who is believed to head North Korea’s overseas spying operations.

If adopted, they would be subject to a global asset freeze and travel ban, making the listings more symbolic given the isolated nature of official North Korean entities and the sophisticated network of front companies used by Pyongyang to evade current sanctions.

It is the first Security Council sanctions resolution on North Korea agreed between the United States and China since President Donald Trump took office in January.

The measures could have been agreed by the council’s North Korea sanctions committee behind closed doors, but a public vote would amplify the body’s anger at Pyongyang’s defiance of a U.N. ban on ballistic missile launches.

The United States had been negotiating with China, Pyongyang’s sole major diplomatic ally, for five weeks on possible new sanctions.

 

Read the whole story from Reuters.