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An employee at the North Korean embassy in Madrid tells reporters not to take photographs on Mar. 13. (Yonhap News)
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Moderates tone regarding rumors of FBI involvement
After around a month of silence, North Korea issued its first public statement regarding a raid on its embassy in Spain in February. The North Korean Foreign Ministry described the incident as a “grave [. . .] terror incident” and said it was “following up” on rumors of possible involvement by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and anti-North Korean groups. It also called for Spanish authorities to handle the incident “in a responsible manner.” The response was reported by North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Mar. 31 in the form of a Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s replies to questions from the reporter. “A grave terrorist attack occurred on February 22, where an armed group assaulted the DPRK Embassy in Spain and bound, beat and tortured the Embassy staff and extorted the communication apparatus,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying by the KCNA. The agency also quoted the spokesperson as calling the incident “an illegal intrusion into and occupation of a diplomatic mission and an act of extortion.” In the article, the Foreign Minister spokesperson also referred to the incident as a “grave breach of the state sovereignty and a flagrant violation of international law.” “[T]his kind of act should never be tolerated over the globe. We are following up on rumors of all hues now in the air that [the] FBI of the United States and the small fry of anti-DPRK ‘body’ [sic] were involved in the terror incident,” the spokesperson continued. NK interested in FBI involvement The reference to “rumors of all hues” is an apparent allusion to allegations of FBI involvement in the incident, a sign that North Korean authorities are moderating the tone of their response. The anti-North Korea group Cheollima Civil Defense (CCD, also known as Free Joseon) recently claimed responsibility for the embassy raid and said it had been in contact with the FBI. The FBI avoided official comment, saying only that it was “our standard practice to neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.” The US State Department asserted that the US government had no connection to the incident. CCD is the same group that claimed to have relocated Kim Han-sol and his family to a “safe place” after the 2017 assassination in Malaysia of his father, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s half-brother Kim Jong-nam. Responding to the KCNA reporter, the North Korea Foreign Ministry spokesperson expressed hopes for a “responsible” investigation by Spanish authorities “in conformity with the relevant international law.” “We expect that the authorities concerned in Spain, a place of incident, carry out an investigation into the incident to the last in a responsible manner in order to bring the terrorists and their wire-pullers to justice in conformity with the relevant international law, and we will wait for the result in patience,” the spokesperson was quoted as saying. By Noh Ji-won, staff reporter Please direct comments or questions to [english@hani.co.kr]
