According to Fox News, U.N. personnel are bringing cash from China into North Korea in order to keep the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) afloat.
U.N personnel are doing this because they are no longer able to transfer money into accounts in North Korea due to Western sanctions against that country.
Prior to the sanctions, U.N. personnel relied on North Korea’s Foreign Trade Bank (FTB), but that institution “was placed under U.S. financial sanctions in March for its role in financing the illegal nuclear program.”
European nations joined the U.S. sanctions, followed by China in May, “a month in advance of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s two-day summit with U.S. President Barack Obama.” The Bank of China’s participation in the sanctions has put a “real crimp in the North Korean regime’s ability to convert local currency into hard cash.”
However, this does not keep U.N. workers from traveling to China for R&R and then “ferrying” cash back to U.N. facilities in North Korea.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins
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