US imposes more North Korea sanctions; urges China, Russia expulsions

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States announced new sanctions on Wednesday aimed at stopping North Korea’s nuclear weapons development and urged China and Russia to expel North Koreans raising funds for the programs.

The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on nine entities, 16 people and six North Korean ships it accused of helping the weapons programs. It said two China-based trading firms were involved in exporting millions of dollars worth of metals and other goods used in weapons production.

The individuals included members of North Korea’s Workers Party operating in China, Russia and Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia region. Among them were North Korea’s vice consul in Nakhodka, Russia and an individual reportedly involved in sending North Korean labourers to Abkhazia.

“Treasury continues to systematically target individuals and entities financing the Kim regime and its weapons programs, including officials complicit in North Korean sanctions evasion schemes,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.

“The U.S. government is targeting illicit actors in China, Russia, and elsewhere who are working on behalf of North Korean financial networks, and calling for their expulsion from the territories where they reside.”

The entities sanctioned included North Korea’s Ministry of Crude Oil Industry.

The action enables the United States to block assets held by the individuals or firms in the United States and prohibits U.S. citizens from dealing with them.

Asked if the Chinese companies sanctioned by the United States had broken sanctions, foreign ministry spokeswomen Hua Chunying said that she did not have all the facts right now.

China will investigate any company or individual that is found to have violated U.N. resolutions in accordance with Chinese law, she said.

“China resolutely opposes any country using its own laws to carry out long-arm jurisdiction on Chinese companies or individuals,” she said.

The United States has led an international campaign to tighten sanctions on North Korea to force it to give up development of nuclear weapons and missiles capable of hitting the United States.

The U.N. Security Council in December unanimously imposed new sanctions on North Korea for a recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, seeking to further limit its access to refined petroleum products and crude oil.

CIA director Mike Pompeo has said North Korea is “a handful of months” away from being able to make a nuclear attack on the United States.

On Tuesday, he said U.S. President Donald Trump’s focus was on a diplomatic solution to the crisis backed by tighter sanctions, but the CIA was working to provide a range of other options should that fail.

The Trump administration has said all options are on the table including military ones, and officials say the president and his advisers have discussed the possibility of a limited strike. But debate on military options has lost some momentum in recent weeks after North and South Korea resumed talks ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics in the South.

Sanctions expert Anthony Ruggiero of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank said the Treasury move showed Trump’s “maximum pressure” policy would continue even with the focus on the inter-Korea talks.

“The action against Chinese firms is important as it increases the pressure on Beijing to stop Chinese nationals from facilitating North Korea’s sanctions evasion,” he said.

Treasury named the firms as Beijing Chengxing Trading Co Ltd and Dandong Jinxiang Trade Co Ltd.

A senior U.S. official said this week that despite the Trump administration’s recent public focus on Russia, China remained the main culprit in North Korea sanctions busting. He pointed to involvement of Chinese organised crime groups, banks, and government officials in the peddling of amphetamines, counterfeit currency and fake luxury goods.

While China has backed successive rounds of U.N. sanctions on North Korea it worries that excessive pressure could cause the collapse of a country it has long considered a strategic ally.

Reporting by David Alexander and David Brunnstrom; Additional reporting by Christian Shepherd in BEIJING; Editing by James Dalgleish, Andrea Ricci and Neil Fullick

Share and Enjoy

Trump Says He Is Willing to Speak Under Oath to Mueller

The president’s surprise exchange with about 20 reporters served as a reminder of the extent to which Mr. Trump sees the Russia inquiry as simply an invalidation of his electoral victory, and feels a deep sense of bitterness about the narrative surrounding his presidency.

His lawyers have been negotiating for weeks with Mr. Mueller’s team about the prospect of having him answer questions in the inquiry, including what topics would be covered. Mr. Trump said last year he would be willing to speak with Mr. Mueller, but he has more recently suggested that should not be necessary because the allegations being examined were baseless.

While there are risks for the president submitting to such an interview, some senior White House officials have argued that Mr. Trump should do so in the interest of bringing a swift end to an investigation that has cast a shadow over his presidency. People familiar with Mr. Trump’s thinking have long described private conversations with the president in which he has said he is eager to meet with Mr. Mueller, a product of his belief that he can sell or coax almost anyone into seeing things his way.

“I would love to do that — I’d like to do it as soon as possible,” the president told reporters on Wednesday of the prospect of being interviewed by Mr. Mueller, adding that his lawyers have told him it would be “about two to three weeks” until it takes place. Almost as an afterthought, he added, any such interview would be “subject to my lawyers, and all of that.”

Many of the potential questions relate to whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice, people briefed on the discussions have said. They have said they expect the interview to be completed by the end of February or early March.

Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer leading the response to the investigation, said Mr. Trump was speaking hurriedly and intended only to say that he was willing to meet.

“He’s ready to meet with them, but he’ll be guided by the advice of his personal counsel,” Mr. Cobb said. He said the arrangements were being worked out between Mr. Mueller’s team and the president’s personal lawyers.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

The White House has made many witnesses available for interviews with prosecutors, and officials have said there are no discussions about Mr. Trump speaking before a grand jury, which is how prosecutors speak to witnesses under oath. Interviews with agents and prosecutors are not conducted under oath, but lying to the F.B.I. is a felony.

Pressed on whether he would be willing to answer questions under oath, Mr. Trump first asked a reporter whether Hillary Clinton, his 2016 campaign rival, had done so in the investigation into her use of a private email server while she served as secretary of state. Mrs. Clinton gave a voluntary interview to F.B.I. investigators in July 2016, and was not under oath, as is typical for such sessions.

President Bill Clinton testified under oath in 1998 about his relationship with a White House intern. He was questioned on camera in the White House Map Room, and the testimony was broadcast to a Washington grand jury room.

Mr. Trump spoke with reporters in the doorway of his chief of staff’s office, interrupting a background briefing with a senior administration official on immigration with his own roughly one-minute informal news conference before he departed for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Mr. Trump also said that he did not recall questioning Andrew G. McCabe, the deputy F.B.I. director, during a job interview about how he voted in the 2016 presidential election, after White House officials conceded on Tuesday that the president had, in fact, asked the question.

“I don’t think so; no, I don’t think I did,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “I don’t know what’s the big deal with that.”

Mr. Trump continued, “I don’t remember asking him the question. I think it’s also a very unimportant question.” The two met after the president fired the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, as Mr. Trump was deciding whether he would name Mr. McCabe the acting director of the bureau. Mr. Trump’s query was an unusual and overtly political one for a discussion with a senior official in the Justice Department, which is supposed to be independent of political influence.

But Mr. Trump appeared to concede that he was concerned about Mr. McCabe’s political affiliation, noting that his wife ran for office in Virginia in 2015 with political support from Terry McAuliffe, a close ally of the Clintons.

Advertisement

Continue reading the main story

“The wife got $500 from Terry,” Mr. Trump said. “Terry is Hillary.”

As he wrapped up the session, the president asked one TV reporter to make sure she aired a “nice piece” about him, expressing his frustration that journalists do not acknowledge his strength as a candidate.

“There’s no collusion,” Mr. Trump said as he left. “I couldn’t have cared less about Russians having to do with my campaign.”

“The fact is, you people won’t say this, but I’ll say it: I was a much better candidate than her,” the president went on, referring to Mrs. Clinton. “You always say she was a bad candidate; you never say I was a good candidate. I was one of the greatest candidates.”

Continue reading the main story

Share and Enjoy