Yonhap reports that the Foreign Ministry has taken exception with a U.S. embassy press release (.pdf file) issued Tuesday describing U.S. Treasury Department assistant secretary Daniel Glaser’s visit to Seoul. To quote from the problematic press release:
While in Seoul, Glaser met with officials throughout the Korean government to continue joint efforts to bolster defenses against illicit financial activity in the region. Money laundering, currency counterfeiting and weapons-of-mass destruction (WMD) proliferation finance constitute a grave threat to global security. Glaser discussed US efforts to warn its financial sector of illicit finance threats worldwide, including those emanating from North Korea, and urged the ROK to take similar steps. He stressed the need for rapid practical steps to ensure that financial institutions such as Banco Delta Asia - which the United States has designated a “primary money laundering concern” -< do not provide a facilitative environment for North Korean illicit activities and other criminal conduct.
Glaser praised the serious focus Korea has given to these important issues. Seoul has taken important steps to help protect its financial sector from dirty money -- namely by implementing strong anti-money laundering measures. Glaser urged Korea to further strengthen its regime in the area of WMD proliferation by focusing efforts to financially isolate WMD proliferators and their support networks.
Glaser expressed the U.S. Treasury's willingness to assist Korea in developing a robust anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing regime that meets international standards to help protect its financial sector from illicit conduct.
The Foreign Ministry, however, said the content of the press release exaggerated some aspects of Glaser’s meetings with Korean officials. In a press release of its own, the ministry said:
The U.S. Treasury Department team, explaining to us the results of its visits to China, Hong Kong and Macao, mentioned the need for general cooperation in preventing illegal financial dealings and transfers of terrorist funds, but it never ‘urged’ the Korean government, officially or unofficially, to take concrete measures.
The statement also said the Korean government, considering the prior understanding between the two sides, felt it inappropriate for the embassy to issue a press release that did not accurately reflect the results of talks between the U.S. Treasury Department team and the Korean side.
That the Foreign Ministry moved so quickly to slam the U.S. embassy is believed to be because it felt the U.S. statement might lead some both here and abroad to believe that the ministry was “hiding” agreements it had made with the United States, or that Korea and the U.S. weren’t communicating on the same wavelength.
Yonhap also noted that the government appeared concerned that it might appear to concur with the U.S. understanding concerning, as the U.S. press release put it, “illicit financial activity facilitated by the North Korean government.”
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One Comment
How can the Northern half of the penisula be so good at playing the world and the Southern half so often shows its ass?
It isn’t just the government. The Chosun Daily was all up in arms about the press release, and it made it sound as if when the press release came out, it was immediately like a bomb among the press corps and they were all over the state department about it —- the US pressuring SK to do what the US demanded, and such….
There is little sense too it.
Maybe they are trying to condition the new players on the US side and the new push on the North — by jumping on the the new US Amb. and the new post of envoy on NKHR, and now by flying off the handle at any percieved “interference” by the US “in Korean domestic affairs” they are trying to shell shock the US side to get blunt whatever lengths the US has decided to go to with NK on sanctions and Human Rights pressure. I hope that is it. At least it’s a plan.
And/or maybe they are just so utterly sensitive to “offending Pyongyang” they feel they have to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. That is a stupid reason, but it is better than the alternative which is that SK has so ingrained itself with the “5,000 year history of oppression” mentality, all of this bleeting is simply reflex.