North Korean embassy closures continue, this time in Spain

North Korea is set to close its embassy in Spain due to difficulties arising from international sanctions, marking the third closure made public since last week.

An employee at the North Korean Embassy in Madrid tells reporters not to take pictures of the compound on March 13, 2019. [AP/YONHAP]

North Korea is set to close its embassy in Spain due to difficulties arising from international sanctions, marking the third closure made public since last week.

The Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain (PCPE) announced the shuttering of the North’s embassy in Madrid in a statement over the weekend that attributed the decision to North Korean authorities.

On Monday, Pyongyang’s state-controlled Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that Jo Pyong-chol, the North’s ambassador to Angola, formally bid farewell to Angolan President Joao Lourenco on Friday.

The previous week, 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.”

Japanese media have also reported that Pyongyang plans to shut down its consulate in Hong Kong and “more than a dozen” other diplomatic missions worldwide.

Before the recent string of closures, North Korea maintained 46 embassies worldwide.

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

The North Korean Embassy in Madrid made headlines in early 2019 after it was revealed that Cheollima Civil Defense, a North Korean dissident group that now operates under the name Free Joseon, raided the embassy compound and tied up staff as well as their guests.

The group’s members, who claimed they were invited into the embassy to carry out a high-level defection, stole mobile telephones, two USB drives and a hard drive from the embassy and handed them to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the United States.

The North Korean Embassy in Madrid mentioned the incident for the first time in four years in April when it issued a statement via the KCNA demanding that the United States extradite the alleged perpetrators of the raid for “severe punishment.”

The embassy also called for an official apology and compensation from the U.S. government, which it claims orchestrated the 2019 raid.

The North Korean Embassy in Rome will take over responsibility for Spain after the Madrid mission closes, according to the PCPE.

According to the party, the North Korean embassy blamed operational difficulties caused by U.S. and European Union sanctions for the closure, as well as the mission’s struggle to develop mutually beneficial cultural and economic ties with Spanish institutions.

The PCPE harshly criticized “enormous” administrative and logistical impediments faced by North Korean diplomats while conducting “basic daily activities” in Spain.

North Korea has not had an ambassador in Spain since September 2017, when Madrid expelled Pyongyang’s top envoy, Kim Hyok-chol, due to the North’s continued testing of banned weapons.

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