KUALA LUMPUR, March 19 (AP): Malaysia said on Friday that it will order all North Korean diplomats to leave the country within 48 hours, an escalation of diplomatic brawl over Malaysia’s move to extradite a North Korean suspect to the United States for money laundering charges.
Malaysia’s announcement came hours after North Korea said it was terminating diplomatic ties with Malaysia because it committed a “super-large hostile act … in subservience to the US pressure.”
North Korea called the money laundering charges an “absurd fabrication and (a) sheer plot” orchestrated by the United States and warned Washington will “pay a due price.”
Ties between North Korea and Malaysia have been virtually frozen since the slaying in 2017 of the estranged half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at Kuala Lumpur International Airport.
Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry denounced North Korea’s move as “unfriendly and unconstructive.” It said the government will order all diplomatic staff and their dependents at the North Korea Embassy to leave Malaysia within 48 hours.
It added that Malaysia was also compelled by North Korea’s decision to shut its own embassy in Pyongyang. Foreign minister Hishammuddin Hussein tweeted that all Malaysian diplomats in North Korea had returned after the embassy’s operations were suspended in 2017.
The ministry said Malaysia had sought to strengthen ties with North Korea “even after the deplorable assassination of Kim Jong Nam in 2017” and that Pyongyang’s decision was “clearly unwarranted, disproportionate and certainly disruptive” for regional peace and stability.
Malaysia’s Foreign Ministry website said the North Korean Embassy is led by Kim Yu Song, the chargé d’affaires and councilor, and six other staff.
“Yes, we will be shutting down. We are now discussing the plans with our staff here and liaising with our government,” Kim was quoted as saying by the New Straits Times.
North Korea has long used Malaysia as a crucial economic hub where it handled trade, labor exports and some illicit businesses in Southeast Asia. Experts say North Korea is taking a tough stance over the extradition because it sees it as a pressure tactic against the North.
Threatening to cut ties with Malaysia was one of the North’s strongest options to express its anger with the Biden administration without jeopardizing an eventual return to nuclear negotiations with Washington, said Hong Min, a senior analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification.
North Korea has insisted it won’t engage in talks with Washington unless it abandons what Pyongyang perceives as a “hostile” policy. But experts say North Korea will eventually seek to return to diplomacy to find ways to get sanctions relief and revive its moribund economy.
