Close Embassy related to North Korea inside Spain After a tumultuous decade that included expulsions of incumbent officials and attacks on the media, this is the natural outcome of a heterodox country beyond its borders. The end of this was suggested in a brief note by the People’s Communist Party of Spain and was confirmed this Saturday by the official South Korean news agency Yonhap, without disclosing the reason. It’s probably a budgetary one.
Your deputy ambassador, So Yun Sokannounced last week that the delegation was closed and that the Italian delegation would undertake diplomatic affairs with Spain. The decision came after North Korea’s ambassadors in Uganda and Angola also packed their bags and, according to the Japanese press, the closure of the consulate in Hong Kong was approaching. South Korean media claims: Pyongyang It could sacrifice a dozen of its 53 diplomatic missions (47 embassies, three consulates and three representatives) in 159 countries with which it maintains official relations.
Economy is in crisis
Retreat to barracks a response to worsening epidemic Economic crisis of the country compared to Seoul. The Unification Ministry argues that due to recent developments, Pyongyang no longer has the funds to cover them. international sanctions Taxes imposed by the arms program made it difficult to receive foreign currency from abroad. Self-financing was imposed on many delegations, forcing businesses that were not always clear to cover their expenses and send surpluses to Pyongyang. Although North Korean ambassadors did not comply with the economic conditions of the diplomatic guild, their lives were more comfortable than in their countries. Decades ago, North Korean embassies, especially in Scandinavian countries, were used in any illicit trade to divert funds to Pyongyang.
Open economy Never one to stagnate, North Korea has created a perfect storm in recent years. HE coronavirus He advised the government to close limitsAssuming that the healthcare system cannot cope with this problem PandemicChina is ending its tourism and trade. Latest sanctions against their launches missilesWith denuclearization negotiations already buried, their calculations also collapsed.
embassy attack
Madrid and Pyongyang established diplomatic relations in 2001, and the Asian regime needed more than a decade to open the embassy. He took over the position a year later Kim Hyok-cholHe was forced to leave the country in 2017 after being declared “persona non grata” by the Spanish Government due to Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile excesses. Since then, the building in Madrid’s Aravaca neighborhood, which was the scene of the Hollywood attack in 2019, has been without a nominal ambassador.
A dozen members of Free Joseon, a shadowy group aiming to overthrow Kim Jong-un’s regime, entered the embassy and bound, gagged and assaulted staff. They left with computers, USB drives and cellphones when police arrived five hours later after an injured female officer jumped from the second floor. The National Police and CNI linked the escaped attackers to the terrorists. including. One of them, former US Marine and Iraq War veteran Christopher Phillip Ahn, turned over the stolen material to the US intelligence agency. washington. The Spanish justice system requested the extradition of the attackers, who were sentenced to between 12 and 28 years in prison, but to no avail.
Hypotheses regarding the cause of this attack are varied. They probably searched for information about Kim Hyok-cholThe ambassador, who left more than a year ago and was then leading negotiations with the former U.S. president on North Korea’s denuclearization, said. donald trump.