Switzerland, Russia join international sanctions on N. Korea

Switzerland on Wednesday froze all assets in the country held by the North Korean government and the Workers' Party of Korea. The European country will also close all North Korean bank branches and accounts and banned Swiss goods, including North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s favorite luxury items, snowmobiles and golfing equipment, from being shipped to the North. Russia’s central bank also stopped its financial institutions from making transactions with Pyongyang on Thursday. The measures came ahead of the June 2 deadline for the submission of reports on the countries’ implementation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution 2270.

Of Kim Jong Un’s estimated 3 billion to 5 billion U.S. dollars in secret overseas funds, about 1 billion dollars are believed to be in Switzerland. When the United States designated Macao’s Banco Delta Asia as a possible money laundering channel for the North’s manufacturing and circulating of counterfeit banknotes, the Macao authorities froze about 25 million dollars in North Korea’s assets. Pyongyang, which was hit hard by the freeze, will likely suffer even more if Switzerland identifies and freezes Kim’s secret funds. There are rumors that the North scattered its overseas secret funds in dozens of different tax havens around the world and opened bank accounts under foreigners’ names, Pyongyang cannot fully avoid the financial sanctions.

Kim, who studied in Switzerland for about five years, built a 3-billion-dollar ski resort in the North mainly because of his memories in the European country. The Swiss government said that its latest sanction is a message to the North that it would no longer accept such a situation. This means that Switzerland, which has long been a safe haven for illegal money from around the world, will no longer deal with such a rogue customer as Kim, who poses a threat to world peace with nuclear weapons. The fact that Russia, the North’s long-time ally, has joined the U.N. sanctions shows how isolated Pyongyang is.

Despite the international community’s warnings, Kim Jong Un declared at the latest party congress that he would never give up the nuclear weapons program. It requires the international community’s united efforts to make Kim yield.

한기흥기자 eligius@donga.com