In very bad news for some neighbourhood The Age brings word that North Korea is sniffing around for an embassy in Canberra.
Labor MP Michael Danby, who chairs the Australian Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said the plan to re-establish a mission in Canberra could be ”part of the mysterious small steps by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to engage with the international community”.
Even so, North Korea surprised the international community in December by launching a long-range rocket that put a satellite into orbit, which many experts saw as a cover for testing ballistic missile technology.
A spokeswoman for the department said the government did ”not oppose the re-opening of the embassy, which would provide a channel to Pyongyang to convey messages of importance to Australia, including on the (North Korea’s) nuclear and missile activities and human rights”.
North Korea closed its previous embassy in January 2008 – a little over five years after opening it – claiming it could not longer afford to run the mission.
It previously had a Canberra embassy for about a year in the mid-1970s but closed it without warning. The first the Australian government knew was when the North Korean diplomats were spotted at the airport with their families.
Anyone want to speculate on what they might bring in the diplomatic bags to turn a dollar out of the operation?
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