Saturday, November 4, 2023

South Korea Sanctions North Korea for Missile Tests

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In response to North Korea’s recent missile launches, South Korea has announced new sanctions targeting four individuals and five entities linked to Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons and missile development programs. The measures include a South African national and two Singaporean shipping firms. This comes after the US and South Korea conducted joint air drills involving B-1B bombers in response to North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch.

Leif-Eric Easley, an associate professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, believes that the effects of these sanctions may be limited, but they are still more than just symbolic. He believes that the current government in Seoul is attempting to dissuade future North Korean threats by steadily imposing costs on Pyongyang for each provocation.

South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s administration has also sanctioned four North Korean individuals and seven entities over cyberattacks believed to be linked to the country’s weapons programmes. In December, Seoul joined the US and Japan in announcing sanctions over Pyongyang’s repeated missile tests, identifying eight individuals and seven institutions it said were connected with North Korea’s missile and nuclear weapons development programme.

However, Andrei Lankov, a North Korea scholar and professor at Kookmin University in Seoul, believes that sanctions are unlikely to halt North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. He believes that North Koreans are determined to develop ICBMs capable of hitting the United States as a deterrent and as a way to blackmail the US from blackmailing South Korea if and when the North Koreans decide it’s time to attack North Korea. Lankov believes that there is nothing that can be done to stop this development.

The tense relationship between South Korea and North Korea stems from the division of the Korean Peninsula into the communist North and capitalist, pro-US South in the aftermath of World War II. The two Koreas fought a bloody war from 1950-1953 that ended in an armistice that left the two sides technically in a state of war to this day. Despite this, South Korea continues to impose sanctions on North Korea in an attempt to dissuade future threats.

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