U.S., North Korea to Discuss Financial Misdeeds

U.S. and North Korean officials are expected to meet for two days of talks in New York beginning Monday to discuss closing down the regime’s suspected illicit financial activities, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 15).

U.S. Treasury Department and Secret Service officials are expected to address strategies for ending North Korean money laundering and counterfeiting of U.S. currency.

The meetings would allow the two nations “to address conduct by the D.P.R.K. that has affected its relationship with the U.S. and well as its access to the international financial system,” a State Department official told AFP.

Counterfeiting, drug trafficking and other activities are believed to produce $1 billion per year for the regime as it has gone about developing its nuclear weapons program.

North Korean Finance Ministry official Ki Kwang Ho and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Daniel Glaser are set to lead the talks.

“We think it’s an opportunity to familiarize the North Koreans with accepted international banking practices and problems that have affected North Korean access to the international financial system,” said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack (Agence France-Presse/Spacewar.com, Nov. 16).

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