North Korea to Shut Embassy in Australia

CANBERRA — North Korea will close its embassy in Australia because it can no longer afford it, an official said Tuesday.

The high cost of recent severe flooding in the communist nation was the main reason for the closure, said diplomat Pak Myong Guk, currently North Korea's most senior representative in Australia.

"When our financial situation is ... resolved, then I think our embassy will be re-established again here in Canberra," Pak said, referring to Australia's capital city.

Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith's office said the development was "regrettable."

The embassy opened in 2002 and will close at the end of January.

Australia will continue its diplomacy with Pyongyang through its embassy in Beijing, said Smith's spokesman, Andrew Dempster. Australia does not have an embassy in North Korea.

North Korea was expected to maintain diplomatic ties with Australia through its embassy in nearby Indonesia.

After Pyongyang severed diplomatic ties with Australia for unclear reasons in 1975, Canberra resumed them in 2000 so it could exert more influence on North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

Australia is widely viewed internationally as a diplomatic messenger for its close ally the United States, which does not have diplomatic ties with North Korea.

Asia expert Peter Drysdale, a professor of economics at Australian National University, said he thought Pyongyang's decision was more financial than political.

"This was a decision that ... has only to do with the inability to finance missions abroad, and is partly a consequence of the financial squeeze that is being put on North Korea," Drysdale said, referring to economic sanctions that various countries have imposed on the communist country.

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