Hard-up North closes embassies in Africa as sanctions sting

North Korea’s ambassador to Angola delivered his farewell greetings to the country's leader, Pyongyang’s state media reported Monday, formally drawing the curtain on the North’s diplomatic presence in a second African country.

Angolan President Joao Lourenco addresses the 78th United Nations General Assembly at the UN’s headquarters in New York on Sept. 20. [REUTERS/YONHAP]

North Korea’s ambassador to Angola delivered his farewell greetings to the country's leader, Pyongyang’s state media reported Monday, formally drawing the curtain on the North’s diplomatic presence in a second African country.

Pyongyang’s top envoy to Luanda, Jo Pyong-chol, paid a visit to Angolan President Joao Lourenco on Friday and “politely” delivered leader Kim Jong-un's message, according to the North’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency.

The closure of the North’s embassy in Angola was first reported by Angolan newspaper Jornal de Angola on Wednesday, a day after Ugandan media reported plans by the North to close its embassy in Uganda.

North Korea and Angola have maintained close ties since establishing relations in 1975, the same year the African country gained independence from Portugal as a Marxist-Leninist one-party state. Angola’s previous president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, paid three visits to Pyongyang during his 38-year period in office.

Although Angola previously welcomed North Korean workers and commissioned giant commemorative statues from North Korean state companies, Luanda reported to the United Nations Security Council in 2017 that it had terminated all contracts with Pyongyang and asked North Korean workers to leave the country to comply with international sanctions against the North for its illegal weapons programs.

According to the Ugandan magazine The Independent, North Korea’s ambassador to Uganda, Jong Tong-hak, told Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni that the regime is shuttering its embassy in Kampala as part of a “strategic” reduction of its embassies in Africa to “increase the efficiency of the country’s external institutions.”

The North has also maintained a close relationship with Uganda since its third president, Idi Amin, came to power in a coup d’etat in 1971.

North Korea has provided Uganda with substantial development assistance and training for its police and military forces, as well as helping the African country develop its domestic weapons manufacturing capabilities.

Although Uganda reported to the UN Security Council that it terminated military cooperation with the North in 2018, the Wall Street Journal published a report in December the same year that quoted an official of the Ugandan Defense Forces as saying “we never ended our ties.”

According to the report, North Korean mining and construction companies in Uganda changed their official registration to “Chinese” or “foreign,” and North Korean medical personnel have continued working in Ugandan hospitals.

But both Uganda and Angola voted in support of a resolution condemning the North for carrying out six nuclear tests at a meeting of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly on Friday in New York.

The closures of the Pyongyang’s missions in Luanda and Kampala come amid ongoing economic challenges in the North that have been exacerbated by international sanctions over the regime’s nuclear and missile programs.

But the North’s state-backed hackers continue to engage in “increasingly sophisticated cybertechniques” to steal funds and information, with Pyongyang’s proceeds from cryptocurrency theft amounting to almost $1.7 billion last year, according to a report submitted by the UN Panel of Experts on sanctions against North Korea to the Security Council on Friday.

South Korea’s Unification Ministry has condemned the North’s “black money” inflows and vowed to ramp up cooperation with the international community to shut off illicit sources of funding for Pyongyang’s weapons programs.

“The North Korean regime’s seizure of illicit funds to secure money for its rule and development of weapons of mass destruction is becoming bolder day by day, both in its methods and scale,” said ministry spokesman Koo Byoung-sam in a regular press briefing on Monday.

“The key to resolving all problems on the Korean Peninsula, and promoting the North’s denuclearization and promotion of human rights, lies in blocking the inflow of black money to Kim Jong-un’s regime,” Koo said.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]