The Donald Trump administration said on the 25th (local time) that it has added two North Korean individuals and three Myanmar nationals to its sanctions list on suspicion of involvement in illegal arms transactions with Myanmar's military regime.
The U.S. Treasury Department that day added to the sanctions list two North Koreans — Nam Cheol-ung (56) of the Reconnaissance General Bureau, who operated out of Dalian, China, and Kim Young-ju (41), a deputy representative of Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID), who operated in Beijing — as well as three Myanmar nationals and the Myanmar-based arms procurement corporation Royal Sun Lei Co., Ltd.
The assets in the United States of those sanctioned are frozen, and transactions with Americans are completely banned. The Treasury Department said that Kim Young-ju played a role in supplying the Myanmar Air Force with bomb guidance devices for airdrops, bombs, and aerial surveillance equipment, and that Nam Cheol-ung laundered foreign currency income across Southeast Asia. The move was centered on KOMID and the Reconnaissance General Bureau, both of which are already subject to sanctions by the United Nations and the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
In particular, KOMID, also known as the "Bureau 221," is a major North Korean arms dealer and an exporter of key equipment for ballistic missiles and conventional weapons, the Treasury Department said. It added that KOMID and the Reconnaissance General Bureau have set up offices and representatives in multiple countries around the world and established shell companies to illegally remit funds to North Korea.
John K. Hurley, Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said, "North Korea's illegal weapons programs are a direct threat to the United States and our allies," adding, "The Treasury Department will continue to dismantle the financial networks that sustain them."
The State Department also said in a statement in the name of Principal Deputy Spokesperson Tommy Pigott that one of the goals of the sanctions is "to cut off funding for North Korea's illicit WMD and ballistic missile programs."
The sanctions, aimed at tightening the flow of funds related to North Korea's nuclear weapons and missile development, came just a few days after North Korean leader Kim Jong-un signaled a willingness for U.S.-North Korea talks on the premise of abandoning denuclearization.
Kim Jong-un was reported by North Korea's state media the following day to have said at the 13th meeting of the 14th Supreme People's Assembly on the 21st, "Personally, I have good memories of the current U.S. President Trump," and, "If the United States sheds its delusional obsession with denuclearization and, based on recognizing reality, wishes for genuine peaceful coexistence with us, we have no reason not to face the United States."