US announces new sanctions on North Korea after missile launches

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced new economic sanctions on North Korea on Friday, after a series of ballistic missile launches by Pyongyang which he described as “unprecedented in their pace, scale and scope.” ”.

North Korea has done six ballistic missile tests in the last 12 days, the last one on Thursday, two of them short-range on Thursday, as diplomats at the UN Security Council debated how to respond to an earlier one that passed over Japan.

In a statement Friday, Blinken said that so far this year North Korea has launched 41 ballistic missiles, six of them intercontinental.

In response, he announced US sanctions on “two individuals and three entities for activities related to oil exports” to North Korea, “which directly support North Korea’s weapons program and its military.”

Blinken said that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated New Eastern Shipping Co Ltd., along with individuals Kwek Kee Seng and Chen Shih Huan, for having participated in transfers or shipments of refined petroleum products. to North Korea.

The document notes that, through the sanctions, “the United States is sending a clear message that further action will be taken against those who support the development and sustainment of North Korea’s military and its arsenal.”

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