U.S. Treasury says it will continue to use financial sanctions against N. Korea

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. Treasury Department will continue to focus on applying financial sanctions against North Korea, according to the agency's budget request for fiscal year 2021.

In the budget proposal published on the Treasury's website this week, the department's Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence outlined its efforts last year to support the administration's efforts to achieve the final and fully verified denuclearization of North Korea.

TFI said that in fiscal year 2019 it sanctioned more than 20 individuals, entities and vessels linked to North Korea.

"This economic pressure campaign has created the conditions to bring the U.S. and North Korea to the negotiating table to finally achieve fully verifiable denuclearization with the hope of bringing peace to the Korean peninsula," it said.

Throughout fiscal years 2020 and 2021, TFI "will continue to focus on applying targeted financial measures against North Korea, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela, in addition to identifying, disrupting, and dismantling terrorist
organizations, drug kingpins, transnational criminal organizations, and other threats to the U.S. and our international partners," it added.

North Korea is under a wide range of U.S. and United Nations sanctions aimed at stopping the regime's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang to denuclearize the regime in exchange for concessions, including sanctions relief, have stalled since the collapse of a February 2019 summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

hague@yna.co.kr
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