DPRK Foreign Ministry Spokesperson on FATF "Decision"

 Pyongyang, November 6 (KCNA) -- A spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea gave the following answer to a question raised by KCNA on Thursday as regards the adoption of an anti-DPRK "decision" at the plenary meeting of the Financial Action Task Force on Anti-Money Laundering (FATF) held in Paris, France in late October:
Shortly ago, the Plenary Meeting of the FATF adopted again the "decision" to re-designate the DPRK as a "state subject to countermeasures".
The Foreign Ministry of the DPRK expresses strong displeasure over the international financial supervisory body's abnormal practice of encroaching upon the dignity, rights and interests of a sovereign state, going against its mission to contribute to the establishment of fair international financial order, and resolutely denounces and rejects it.
Explicitly speaking once again, "money laundering", "financing of terrorism", "drug trafficking" and "counterfeiting" have nothing to do with the DPRK as they were fabricated by the U.S. and its vassal forces with the sinister political aim of "demonizing" the former.
As known, we have taken a series of measures on our own initiative to ensure transparency in financial transactions, including several negotiations with the FATF since 2013 and the amendment and supplement of the domestic law on anti-money laundering and combating the financing of terrorism, with an intention to promote the establishment of a sound international financial order.
However, the FATF, persistently disregarding our goodwill and sincere efforts, has designated our country as a "high-risk state threatening the international financial system" and a "state subject to countermeasures" every year, and in 2024 it even deprived us of the observer position at the Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering.
All facts clearly prove that the FATF has turned into a conspiracy group and an extremely politicized organization serving the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK aimed to encroach upon the normal and legitimate right to development of our state.
The U.S. and the Western forces are chiefly to blame for creating all sorts of criminal acts such as money laundering, terrorism, drug trafficking and WMD proliferation as they unhesitatingly encroach upon the sovereignty and territorial integrity of sovereign states and cause social instability and confusion in different parts of the world in order to realize their ambition for hegemony.
The FATF should be mindful that if it is used as a tool for realizing the political purpose of the dishonest forces, abandoning its fairness and objectivity as an international organization, it will never be able to gain the confidence of the international community but lose its value of existence.
Consistent is the DPRK's stand against all forms of crimes including money laundering and the financing of terrorism.
The DPRK will never tolerate the slightest attempt to infringe upon the dignity, rights and interests of the state but actively join the righteous international community in its efforts to establish a fair international order in the future, too. -0-