Japan announces fresh North Korea sanctions

Japan announced fresh sanctions against North Korea on Wednesday for its latest rocket launch, including a total ban on shipping from the country and barring Pyongyang’s nationals from entering.

Japan’s announcement comes after the UN Security Council strongly condemned Sunday’s rocket launch and agreed to move quickly to impose new sanctions of its own.

“We have decided to take firm sanction steps,” Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters of the latest move, which adds to measures Japan already has in place over past North Korean nuclear and missile tests.

“All North Korean ships, including those for humanitarian purposes, shall be banned from coming to Japanese ports,” the statement said. “Third-country ships that visited North Korea shall be also banned from entering,” it added. The measures also toughen financial reporting requirements for people transporting cash to North Korea, the statement added.

The measures bring back and add to some sanctions that Japan eased in 2014, such as the travel ban, after Pyongyang agreed to re-investigate issues related to Japanese nationals kidnapped by North Korean agents decades ago.

The announcement came as South Korea also decided to suspend all operations at a jointly run Kaesong industrial park in North Korea to punish Pyongyang. It was the first time Seoul had suspended operations at the estate since it opened in 2004 as a symbol of cross-border reconciliation. “Today, in order to stop funds of the Kaesong Industrial Complex from being used to support the development of North Korea’s nuclear and missile capabilities... The government has decided to completely shut down” operations, a statement said.

The Seoul-funded estate, just 10 km across the border in North Korea, has been a precious source of hard currency for the isolated and impoverished North since its opening. Some 124 South Korean companies operate factories there, employing about 53,000 North Korean workers.

The estate has been operating “with a view to assisting the lives of the North Korean people, providing impetus to lifting up the North Korean economy and achieving the shared progress for both South and North Korea,” the statement said. “However, such assistance and the efforts of our government have ultimately been wrongly harnessed in the service of upgrading North Korea’s nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.”