On Friday 6 April, the EU Council imposed sanctions, through written procedure, on a further 21 entities and one person in response to North Korea's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development which violate numerous UNSC resolutions.
The sanctions involve an assets freeze, and, in addition, for Tsang Yung Yuan, who coordinated the export of North Korean coal with a North Korean broker operating in a third country that led to other tax evasion activities, a ban on travelling in the EU. The EU also decided to freeze the assets of 15 vessels and to ban the entry into its ports of 25 vessels.
These measures will be published in the Official Journal of Monday 9 April and are a transposition of the sanctions imposed on 30 March 2018 by the United Nations Security Council.
Meeting between European and North Korean leaders
An EU spokesperson also said on 6 April that the managing director for Asia and the Pacific at the European External Action Service, Gunnar Wiegand, had met, on 4 April, Mr Kim Son Gyong, the director-general of the European Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, at the request of the DPRK. "Discussions focused on the state of play of EU-DPRK bilateral relations and they exchanged views on the recent developments on the Korean peninsula and prospects for achieving the goal of a complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation", the spokesperson stated, adding that Wiegand had also expressed the EU's expectation that the DPRK authorities take steps "to improve the dire human rights situation in the country".
Similarly, the deputy director general for International Cooperation and Development (DG DEVCO) at the European Commission, Marjeta Jager, also met with Mr Kim, at the DPRK's request. "The Commission reiterated the EU's policy of critical engagement (...) including ongoing assistance in the area of food security". (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)