U.S. imposes new North Korea sanctions amid stalled diplomatic talks

The United States issued new North Korea-related sanctions on Wednesday, targeting 10 individuals and one entity, according ⁠to a notice posted to the Treasury Department’s website. The Treasury Department said the schemes involve North Korean IT workers fraudulently gaining employment with companies in the United States and elsewhere, and Pyongyang taking most of the workers’ wages to fund its weapons of mass ⁠destruction and ballistic missile programs. “These networks permeate ​through ⁠the global financial system, necessitating a unified response to match the threat,” the department said in a statement, adding that ⁠Australia and the European Union also imposed North Korea-related sanctions this month. North ​Korea’s ⁠mission to the United Nations ‌in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The sanctions come ‌as President Donald Trump has been eager to jump-start talks with North Korea, but ‌Pyongyang has shown little interest in ‌diplomacy aimed at containing its nuclear program. However, earlier this month Trump downplayed the idea of another high-profile ⁠meeting with Kim in China next month. Trump became the only U.S. president to have met a North Korean leader when he held an unprecedented series of summits with Kim in 2018 and 2019, but the diplomatic efforts ‌broke down over US demands that North ​Korea give up its nuclear weapons. Trump ‌has since referred ⁠to North Korea repeatedly as a “nuclear ⁠power,” although his administration has continued to call for the ‌country’s denuclearization ​and has not formally recognized ‌it as a ​nuclear-weapons state. Wednesday’s ‌sanctions targets include facilitators and North ⁠Korean IT workers based in North Korea and Russia, the Treasury ⁠Department said. The targeted entity is named the First Financial and Technical Development Center, ‌and six of ​the sanctioned individuals are linked to ‌that firm. The Treasury Department sanctioned a ​separate North Korean IT worker network in March.