SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) — U.S. and South Korean senior officials held a meeting in Seoul on Tuesday (February 23) amid high tension on the Korean peninsula after North Korea’s rocket launch earlier this month.
The U.S. Treasury Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (TFFC), Jennifer Fowler, and South Korean Foreign Ministry’s Director General for North Korean Nuclear Affairs, Kim Gunn, attended the meeting in the South Korean capital.
Fowler and Kim were expected to discuss ways to intensify sanctions against North Korea, the South Korean Foreign Ministry said.
North Korea launched a long-range rocket called Kwangmyongsong-4, on February 7 carrying what it said was a satellite, drawing renewed international condemnation just weeks after it carried out a nuclear test on January 6.
South Korea and the United States said the North’s rocket launch was a long-range missile test and violated U.N. Security Council resolutions that ban the use of ballistic missile technology by the isolated state.
U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday (February 18) signed into law legislation broadening sanctions to punish North Korea for its nuclear programme, human rights record and cyber crimes, according to the White House.
The U.S. and South Korea are expected to begin large-scale annual military drills in early March, which the North calls preparations for war and routinely vows retaliation.
