Treasury names 10 people and one development center
Washington announced a fresh round of North Korea-related sanctions on Wednesday, according to a notice published on the Treasury Department's website. The action covers 10 individuals and a single entity. The entity is identified as the First Financial and Technical Development Center, and six of the designated people are connected to that organization. Two of those named are Russian citizens, while the others appear to be North Korean, based on the Treasury notice.[S1][S2][S3][S4][S5]
The notice does not spell out the specific conduct behind each designation, and no further detail on the scope of the restrictions was provided in the posting. What is clear is the scale: a group of ten people plus one institution, with the majority of the individuals tied to the same development center. The listing adds another layer to the financial measures the United States has built up around North Korea over successive administrations.[S1]
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Sanctions land as Trump pushes for fresh talks
The designations arrive at a moment when President Donald Trump has been keen to revive negotiations with North Korea. Pyongyang, for its part, has displayed little enthusiasm for diplomacy intended to curb its nuclear weapons program. Earlier this month, Trump played down the prospect of another high-profile meeting with Kim Jong Un on the sidelines of a gathering in China scheduled for next month.[S1]
Trump holds a unique place in the history of US-North Korea relations: he is the only American president to have sat down with a North Korean leader, having staged an unprecedented run of summits with Kim in 2018 and 2019. Those efforts ultimately foundered on Washington's insistence that Pyongyang abandon its nuclear arsenal. Since then, Trump has repeatedly described North Korea as a nuclear power, even as his administration keeps pressing for denuclearization and has stopped short of formally recognizing the country as a nuclear-weapons state.[S1]
