Experts feel US sanctions on N. Korea meaningless

Washington, July 22 (ANI): Experts have said the latest sanctions imposed by the United States on North Korea are meaningless.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced the new sanctions Wednesday while on a visit to South Korea with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

The new sanctions will target arms sales and other activities that fund the regime, as well as the purchase and importation of luxury goods used to reward the regime's elites in the military and other administrations.

The sanctions will also prevent North Korean officials from traveling, while asset freezes are to be expanded.

Washington is also planning to step up collaboration with international banks to curtail North Korea's money laundering activities.

"If I were in Pyongyang, I would not be trembling in my boots about this," the Christian Science Monitor quoted Nick Eberstadt, a North Korea specialist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, as saying.

"The one approach that has caught North Korea's attention in the past is financial sanctions that disrupt its access to the international banking system," said Ken Lieberthal, a senior fellow in foreign policy and a Northeast Asia expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington.

"If we are not resorting to any Treasury-Department-sponsored efforts to get at North Korea's banking activities abroad, there is reason to lack confidence that more sanctions will have any significant effect," he added. (ANI)