李明博 정부가 가장 잘한 일은 韓美동맹 관계를 복원시키고, 북한정권에 뜯어먹히는 퍼주기를 중단한 것이다. 기획재정부는 지난 6월1일부터 단천은행 등 북한의 세 기업에 대하여 금융거래를 금지하는 조치를 취하였다.이 세 기업은 유엔 안보리가 미사일 발사 시험 이후 제재대상으로 선정한 회사인데, 우리 정부가 실천에 옮긴 것이다. 핵 및 미사일 개발, 그리고 군사력 증강에 이용되는 이 세 회사와 거래하는 한국의 기업은 없다고 한다. 그럼에도 북한정권의 눈치를 보지 않고 북한정권의 돈줄 차단에 한국정부가 참여하였다는 것은 의미가 있다. 뉴욕타임스도 이 기사를 중요하게 취급하였다.

북한의 핵무기로부터 가장 직접적인 위협을 받는 한국 정부가 이 정도의 제재에 머물러선 안 된다. 북한선박의 제주해협 통과 不許, 휴전선의 對北방송 再開 등 우리의 카드를 점검하고 대응해야겠다.
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뉴욕 타임스 기사


Seoul Imposes Sanctions on N. Korea


SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea imposed its first financial sanctions on North Korean companies, officials said Tuesday, taking a symbolic action that could anger the Communist regime while bolstering a joint front with the United States as the allies seek to punish the North for its recent nuclear test.

The escalating tensions began hurting investor sentiments. On Tuesday, a South Korean fur-coat maker became the first company to announce it was withdrawing from the Kaesong joint industrial complex in North Korea, a sign that deteriorating inter-Korean relations and tensions over the North’s recent nuclear test were jeopardizing the complex, once hailed as a model of future economic cooperation between the two Koreas.

The financial sanctions against three North Korean firms, which became effective on June 1, were disclosed on Tuesday, a day after North Korea sentenced two American journalists to 12 years of hard labor for illegal entry and unspecified “hostile acts.”

The families of the journalists, Laura Ling and Yuna Lee, urged North Korea to grant them clemency.

“We remain hopeful that the governments of the United States and North Korea can come to an agreement that will result in the release,” the families said in a statement.

American officials said that the harsh sentences were likely to be used as a negotiating ploy by the North as it tries to avoid new sanctions being worked out at the United Nations Security Council in response to the nuclear test two weeks ago. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton stressed that the reporters’ case and Washington’s efforts to punish North Korea for its nuclear test are “entirely separate matters.”

Still, American officials appeared to be weighing whether to send a special envoy in a high-profile effort to seek the release of the two journalists. The two most likely candidates are former Vice President Al Gore, whose Current TV channel employs the two journalists, and Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who has visited North Korea several times and helped negotiate the release of two Americans in the 1990s.

Asked Monday if Washington will send an envoy, Mrs. Clinton said her government is “pursuing every possible approach” to win their release.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance in Seoul said that it has banned trading with three North Korean firms — Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation, Tanchon Commercial Bank, and Korea Ryongbong General Corporation — and will freeze their assets. But officials said that these firms have no trading with South Korea or assets in the South.

The Security Council had earlier targeted those three North Korean entities when it reaffirmed financial restrictions against the North after its rocket launch on April 5.

Until now, while voicing support for Security Council decisions, South Korea had avoided implementing such symbolic but politically sensitive sanctions for fear they would anger Pyongyang. That stance began shifting in May when South Korea announced it could search North Korean ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction in its territorial waters as part of an American-led global arms embargo.

Ms. Ling, 32, and Ms. Lee, 36, were arrested March 17 on the China-North Korea border.

“There is a serious doubt that these journalists had a fair trial because the legal proceedings have not been transparent,” said Kay Seok, a Seoul-based researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It’s not clear whether the North Korean government has honored the defendants’ right to choose their own lawyers, and whether they had the benefit of courtroom translators.”

Analysts in Seoul doubted that the journalists would spend time at one of the North’s notorious labor camps, where North Korean defectors said malnutrition and beatings were rampant. Rather, they said the journalists could be held at a “sanitized” prison that Pyongyang allowed international human rights officials to visit in the mid-1990s.