Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP
This photo provided on Nov. 19, 2022, by the North Korean government shows what it says a Hwasong-17 intercontinental ballistic missile before its test firing at Pyongyang International Airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, Friday, Nov. 18, 2022. Independent journalists were not given access to cover the event depicted in this image distributed by the North Korean government. The content of this image is as provided and cannot be independently verified. Korean language watermark on image as provided by source reads: “KCNA” which is the abbreviation for Korean Central News Agency.
Published Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022 | 6:40 p.m.
Updated Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022 | 7:13 p.m.
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration today imposed sanctions on three members of North Korea’s ruling party's central committee for their involvement in the country’s ballistic missile program.
The Treasury Department announced it was targeting the director and vice director of the Workers Party of Korea, Jon Il Ho and Yu Jin, respectively, along with another central committee member, Kim Su Gil, with asset freezes and bans on Americans conducting any type of business with them.
The sanctions came as North Korea has ramped up its ballistic missile testing to a record pace this year with more than 60 launches, dialing up pressure on Washington and Seoul.
The three officials “played major roles" in North Korea's development of weapons in violation of U.N. resolutions, the Treasury Department said in a statement, and “have personally attended numerous ballistic missile launches since at least 2017.”
The trio were penalized by the European Union in April and had been previously covered under existing U.S. sanctions against the North's ruling party.
The dozens of tests have included multiple launches of ICBMs with a potential range to reach the U.S. mainland and an intermediate-range missile flown over Japan.
North Korea has also conducted a barrage of short-range launches it described as simulated nuclear attacks on South Korean and U.S. targets as it angrily reacted to the expansion of the allies’ combined military exercises, which North Korea insists are rehearsals for a potential invasion.
North Korea has punctuated the tests with threats of nuclear conflict with Washington and Seoul that communicated an escalatory nuclear doctrine.
The North's rubber-stamp parliament in September passed a law that authorized preemptive nuclear attacks in a broad range of scenarios, including nonwar situations, where the country may perceive its leadership as under threat.
South Korea on Friday also sanctioned eight North Korean individuals and seven organizations suspected of engaging in illicit activities to finance the North’s growing nuclear weapons and missile programs.
The move was largely symbolic considering the lack of financial exchanges and business activities between the rival Koreas. But the steps may still draw an irritated response from North Korea, which last month called South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his government “idiots” and a “wild dog gnawing on a bone given by the U.S.” after Seoul said it's considering placing more unilateral sanctions on Pyongyang.
The South Korean sanctions were announced shortly after the U.S. announced its penalties.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Seoul's sanctions were in response to the North’s heightening weapons threat, highlighted by last month’s testing of an intercontinental ballistic missile that demonstrated potential range to reach the U.S. mainland.
The eight individuals and seven organizations targeted by Seoul had already been sanctioned by Washington and were involved in a variety of North Korean efforts to evade United Nations Security Council sanctions to finance its weapons program, including ship-to-ship transfers of fuel and illicit exports of labor, the ministry said.
