Seoul (AFP) - South Korea, Japan and the United States on Friday urged UN member states to repatriate North Korean workers, claiming they continued to help Pyongyang dodge sanctions and fund its weapons programmes.
North Korea was also engaged in "malicious cyber activities" that supported its military expansion, representatives of the three countries said in a joint statement.
Overseas workers have long been a significant source of income for nuclear-armed North Korea, but under a 2017 United Nations resolution, member states had until December 2019 to repatriate them.
But after a Friday meeting in Seoul, the South Korean, Japanese and US special envoys for North Korea stressed the need for countries to ensure compliance with UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions.
"Overseas DPRK IT workers continue using forged identities and nationalities to evade UNSC sanctions and earn income abroad that funds the DPRK's unlawful weapon of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes," the envoys said, using North Korea's official name.
"We are also deeply concerned about how the DPRK supports these programmes by stealing and laundering funds as well as gathering information through malicious cyber activities."
North Korea stole as much as $1.7 billion in cryptocurrency last year alone, they added.
North Korea has sent large numbers of workers abroad, mostly to neighbouring China and Russia, but also to the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
In 2019, analysts said China and Russia -- Pyongyang's main allies -- were issuing North Korean workers with alternative visas to ensure a continued supply of cheap labour.
Communication hotline
North Korea last year declared itself an "irreversible" nuclear power, effectively ending the possibility of denuclearisation talks.
In recent months, it has tested a number of weapons, including an intercontinental ballistic missile in defiance of international sanctions, and what it claimed was an underwater nuclear-capable drone.
"We strongly condemn the DPRK's repeated ballistic missile launches as well as its escalatory and destabilising rhetoric related to the use of nuclear weapons," the envoys said.
"We express deep regret that the DPRK continues to ignore the hardship of its people, choosing instead to pour its scarce resources into its WMD and ballistic missile programs in clear violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions."
Later Friday, South Korea said the North abruptly stopped answering the routine phone calls that normally take place twice every day via a military hotline and the inter-Korean communication liaison channel.
"We will monitor the situation, including the possibility of communication line failures in the North," South Korea's unification ministry said.
North Korea has severed the hotline several times in the past, with reasons ranging from technical glitches to US-South Korea joint military drills.
In 2021, it restored the inter-Korean hotline around a year after it was disconnected in protest against South Korean civilians launching anti-government leaflets into North Korea.
