ANY North Koreans remaining in Malaysia are participants of the Malaysia My Second Home (MM2H) programme, said Inspector-General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador.

He said the police would leave it up to the Immigration Department and the Home Ministry to decide on whether these individuals should return to North Korea following Pyongyang’s decision to end diplomatic relations with Kuala Lumpur.

“I assure you the situation in the country is still under control,” he told Bernama today.

Yesterday, a Daily NK report claimed North Korea had not recalled hundreds of workers, including secret agents of the country’s Munitions Industry Department (MID) involved in the smuggling of luxury goods and weapons.

The report also said the MID was involved in arms smuggling and that it had made Malaysia a transit hub for sneaking weapons to Iran, Syria and the United Arab Emirates, as well as illegally importing weapons from other countries to North Korea.

Earlier, Senior Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the government had not received reports that North Korea still allowed its secret agents to use Malaysia as a transit point to purchase weapons and luxury goods.

On March 21, North Korean Embassy staff and their dependents in Malaysia returned home following Pyongyang’s decision to end diplomatic relations with Kuala Lumpur on March 19.

Pyongyang announced it was severing ties with Malaysia after a court here allowed a North Korean businessman to be extradited to the United States to face money laundering charges.

Malaysia and North Korea established diplomatic relations in 1973, and achieved various diplomatic and trade achievements until 2017, when Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was assassinated in Malaysia. – Bernama, April 3, 2021.