INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
by Washington for involvement with North Korea's nuclear weapons program.The move comes as United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
presses Southeast Asian countries during meetings in Singapore to maintain sanctions to pressure Pyongyang, which is in talks with the
United States about dismantling its nuclear program.Sanctions by the United States and the United Nations Security Council, which include a
ban on exports of coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood from North Korea, and caps on imports of oil and refined petroleum products, are
aimed at choking off funding for Pyongyang's nuclear and ballistic missile programs.The United States Treasury Department said
Moscow-based Agrosoyuz Commercial Bank had conducted "a significant transaction" for Han Jang Su, the Moscow-based chief representative of
Foreign Trade Bank (FTB), North Korea's primary foreign exchange bank."The United States will continue to enforce UN and United States
sanctions and shut down illicit revenue streams to North Korea," United States Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.The
Treasury also added Ri Jong Won, the Moscow-based deputy representative of FTB, and said both Ri and Han should be expelled from Russia
resolutions meant to pressure Pyongyang over its nuclear program.It also designated what it said were two FTB front companies, China-based
Dandong Zhongsheng Industry Trade Co Ltd and Korea Ungum Corporation, which is based in North Korea.The United States has kept up its
pressure campaign on North Korea even as United States President Donald Trump has pursued talks with the country's leader, Kim Jong Un,
to denuclearize.Questions have arisen over Pyongyang's commitment to give up its nuclear program after United States spy satellite
material detected renewed activity at the factory that produced North Korea's first intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of
reaching the United States.In a letter to Trump on Friday, Republican senators Cory Gardner, Lindsey Graham, Marco Rubio and Dan Sullivan
urged the administration to tighten sanctions."Mr President, we believe that the time to ramp up maximum pressure against North Korea is
now, if we are to peacefully achieve the goal of the complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in the
near future," the senators wrote.Russia on Friday denied a Wall Street Journal report that it was allowing thousands of new North Korean
laborers into the country and granting them work permits in a potential breach of U.N
