Stranded Malaysian UN Staff Leave DPRK

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United-Nations

Two Malaysians working for the UN World Food Programme (WFP) who were stranded in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) amid a diplomatic fallout have left the country, a WFP spokesperson said Thursday.

“WFP confirms that two staff members of Malaysian nationality have left the DPRK and arrived in Beijing today,” a WFP spokesperson confirmed to Xinhua in a written reply.

The spokesperson said: “the staff members are international civil servants and not representatives of their national government.

“They work on WFP’s programmes in the DPRK”.

In tit-for-tat moves on Tuesday, Malaysia and the DPRK expelled the ambassador of the other’s side and banned each other’s citizens from leaving, as investigations into the death of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half brother Kim Jong Nam.

Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak accused North Korea of “effectively holding our citizens hostage” and held an emergency meeting of his National Security Council.

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The UN called for calm between Malaysia and North Korea and urged them to settle their differences through “established diplomatic practice.”

The moves underscored the dramatic deterioration in ties with one of North Korea’s few friends outside China since the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13.

Malaysia said the assassins used VX nerve agent, a chemical listed by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

Police have identified eight North Koreans wanted in connection with the murder, including two of the three believed to be hiding in the embassy – a senior North Korean diplomat and a state airline employee.

The only people charged so far are a Vietnamese woman and an Indonesian woman, accused of smearing the victim’s face with VX. He died within 20 minutes.

North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a temporary ban on Malaysians leaving the country, “until the incident that happened in Malaysia is properly solved,” state-run Korea Central News Agency said.

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