UNITED NATIONS, March 13 (UPI) -- The U.N. Development Program suspended its operations in North Korea and withdrawing all but two of its international staff by week's end.
A UNDP spokesman said Tuesday the move comes over the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's failure to implement conditions set up following reports U.N. funds improperly went to the Government.
"It became clear in our exchanges with the Korean government that there was a desire to reopen issues that we considered non-negotiable and in that circumstance we had no choice," David Morrison told reporters during a news briefing at U.N. World Headquarters in New York. He said the conditions included ending all hard currency payments and discontinuing subcontracting of national staff through government recruitment as of March 1.
The conditions, adopted by UNDP's executive board in January, also included adjusting the content of current programs to support sustainable human development goals.
North Korea has been subject to U.N. Security Council sanctions since October following its proclaimed nuclear test.
"The two conditions with dates had to do with the use of internationally convertible currency in some of our payments and the practice employing as national staff Korean government employees on secondment from national ministries," he added.
UNDP's programs in the country are undergoing external audit after published reports suggested its own audits raised concerns about payments being channeled to the government.
Morrison said agency spending on the DPRK over that past 10 years totaled $47.5 million, of which about 40 to 60 per cent was spent in the country.
Out of the current nine international staff in Pyongyang, the DPRK capital -- eight UNDP and one UNDP-administered staff -- seven, including the resident representative, will leave the country by Saturday.
