KUALA LUMPUR – All North Koreans still in Malaysia are participants in the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme, and their movements have been identified, said Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Abdul Hamid Bador.
He said police will leave it to the Immigration Department and Home Ministry to decide whether these individuals should return to North Korea, following Pyongyang’s decision to end diplomatic relations with Putrajaya.
“I assure you that the situation in the country is still under control," he told Bernama yesterday.
On Thursday, a Daily NK report said North Korea has not recalled hundreds of workers, including secret agents with its Munitions Industry Department (MID) involved in the smuggling of luxury goods and weapons.
It also said MID is involved in arms smuggling, and has made Malaysia a transit hub for moving North Korean weapons to Iran, Syria and the United Arab Emirates, as well as “importing” weapons from other countries.
Earlier, Senior Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government had not received a report on claims that North Korea is still allowing its secret agents to use Malaysia as a transit hub for the purchase of weapons and luxury goods.
On March 21, all diplomatic staff of the North Korean embassy here and their dependents returned home following Pyongyang’s decision to end diplomatic relations with Putrajaya two days prior.
Pyongyang severed ties after a court here ruled that a North Korean businessman would be extradited to the United States to face money-laundering charges.
Malaysia and North Korea established diplomatic relations in 1973, and achieved various diplomatic and trade achievements up till 2017, when Kim Jong-nam, the estranged half-brother of the North’s leader Kim Jong-un, was assassinated at klia2. – Bernama, April 3, 2021
