North Korea sought to open an account with a South Korean bank at an inter-Korean industrial complex in its border town of Kaesong last year, but the South Korean bank rejected the request, officials at the Unification Ministry said Tuesday.
The report comes amid U.S. financial sanctions against the communist state for its alleged involvement in illegal activities, including counterfeiting, laundering and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Ministry officials, however, dismissed suspicions that North Korea may have tried to use the South Korean bank to evade, or find a safehouse from, the U.S. financial sanctions.
"North Korea first filed its request to open an account with the Woori Bank on Sept. 14, 2005, one day before" Washington imposed sanctions on a Macau bank suspected of aiding the North launder counterfeit U.S. dollars, ministry spokesman Yang Chang-seok told reporters.
A spokesman for the South Korean bank said the bank first heard of the North's request in December, but did not rule out the possibility that North Korea may have filed its initial request with the South Korean government as early as September.
Goh Gyeong-bin, the ministry official in charge of the inter-Korean project to develop an industrial complex in Kaesong, said an account with the South Korean bank, if one was opened, would not have provided a safe haven for the communist state.
"The North said it wished to open an account at the Woori Bank branch in Kaesong and collect the wages of its workers at the industrial complex through the account," Goh said.
He said the South Korean bank remained reluctant to comply with the North's request since the beginning and notified the North Korean side in March that it decided not to approve the request.
Woori Bank officials confirmed Goh's statement.
"The North said it understood the bank's position and that's when the situation was concluded," Goh said.
Nearly 8,300 North Korean laborers are currently working for 13 South Korean firms operating in the joint industrial complex, producing some US$5 million worth of goods a month, according to Goh.
A number of U.S. officials, including Jay Lefkowitz, a special envoy for North Korean human rights, have expressed concerns over possible violations of the North Korean workers' human rights there and the diversion of their wages to help the North's weapons program.
Seoul dismisses the concerns, saying the amount of money paid in wages is insignificant even for the impoverished North.
About $600,000, in U.S. dollars, are paid each month to North Korean workers there, whose minimum monthly wage is set at $57, according to Goh.
The joint industrial complex is expected to house some 2,000 South Korean firms, employing as many as half a million North Koreans, when it is in full swing in 2012, according to the Unification Ministry.
Seoul, Sept. 19 (Yonhap News)
N. Korean request to open account with S. Korean bank in Kaesong rejected |
