North Korea bars Malaysians from leaving as murder row boils

     North Korea barred Malaysians from leaving the country on Tuesday, sparking tit-for-tat action by Malaysia, as police are investigating the murder of Kim Jong Nam.


   The murder is being investigated in Kuala Lumpur sought to question three men hiding in the North Korean embassy. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak accused North Korea of “effectively holding our citizens hostage’’ and scheduled an emergency meeting of his National Security Council.

   The moves underscored the dramatic deterioration in ties with one of North Korea’s few friends outside China since the murder of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s estranged half-brother at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb. 13.

   Malaysia says the assassins used VX nerve agent, a chemical listed by the United Nations as a weapon of mass destruction.

   Police have identified eight North Koreans wanted in connection with the murder, including two of the three believed to be hiding in the embassy, a senior North Korean diplomat and a state airline employee.

    The only people charged so far are a Vietnamese woman and an Indonesian woman, accused of smearing the victim’s face with VX and he died within 20 minutes.

North Korea’s foreign ministry issued a temporary ban on Malaysians leaving the country, “until the incident that happened in Malaysia is properly solved,’’ state-run Korea Central News Agency said.

“In this period, the diplomats and citizens of Malaysia may work and live normally under the same conditions and circumstances as before.’’

   Najib denounced the travel ban in a statement as an “abhorrent act’’ that was in “total disregard of all international law and diplomatic norms’’. He returned from Indonesia and called an emergency meeting of his National Security Council.

   Najib said he has instructed the police “to prevent all North Korean citizens in Malaysia from leaving the country until we are assured of the safety and security of all Malaysians in North Korea’’. “You’d have to go back a long way for this kind of wholesale diplomatic meltdown,’’ said Euan Graham Director, International Security at the Lowy Institute in Sydney.

   Graham called it “a classic own goal of North Korea’s making’’, and was triggered “by the most outrageous public murder than you can imagine, using a chemical weapon in a crowded international airport.’’

   The Malaysian murder and the four ballistic missiles North Korea test-launched on Monday “creates a more supportive climate for even tougher rounds of sanctions and coercive measures’’ against Pyongyang, Graham said.

   Before the murder, North Korea could count Malaysia as one of its strongest friends. But Malaysia has since stopped visa-free travel and on Monday it expelled North Korea’s ambassador for questioning the impartiality of the murder investigation.

SUN