Madrid (Agencies): Spain has announced it is expelling the North Korean envoy in response to the East Asian nation’s missile launches over Japan, and nuclear programme.
The Spanish Foreign Ministry said that Ambassador Kim Hyok Chol was summoned and told that he would have to leave by the end of the month.
“Today, the North Korean ambassador was summoned and was told of the decision to consider him as a persona non grata, therefore he must stop working and abandon the country before 30 September,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The announcement from Spain comes hours after Kuwait decided to expel North Korea’s ambassador to the country and other diplomatic officials in a move to limit ties with the country.
North Korea’s Ambassador So Chang Sik and other diplomats have been ordered to leave the country within a month, international media quoted a North Korean diplomat in the Gulf region.
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) imposed new sanctions after North Korea’s sixth and largest nuclear test this month, and the United States called on countries to sever diplomatic and financial ties with it.
Spain’s Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis told reporters yesterday in New York, where he is attending the UN General Assembly, that Spain had warned Kim Hyok Chol that there would be consequences if the country continued with the tests.
North Korea launched an intermediate-range ballistic missile over Japan on Friday in protest against tough new sanctions imposed last week by the UN Security Council after Pyongyang conducted its sixth, and most powerful, nuclear test on Sept. 3. Friday’s missile launch was the second over Japan in less than a month.
North Korea will be among the top issues discussed at the UN General Assembly.