At least three and possibly more North Korean restaurants are operating in Cambodia’s capital in apparent violation of United Nations sanctions that took effect earlier this year.
Three of the restaurants in Phnom Penh, which all have names including the word Pyongyang, the capital of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, are staffed by North Korean workers and offer products from that country, including blueberry wine and ginseng. They’re part of a well-documented global network of businesses that have been generating cash for the North Korean regime for years.
New sanctions adopted by the UN Security Council in September in response to North Korea’s testing of nuclear weapons required that such businesses be closed by January 9. The resolution banned “the operation of all joint ventures or cooperative entities, new and existing, with DPRK entities or individuals, whether acting for or on behalf of the DPRK”.
