The North Korean Embassy in Bangladesh has closed, a Bangladeshi official told NK News on Monday, the latest in a spate of DPRK mission closures over the past month.

The embassy in Dhaka is the DPRK’s sixth diplomatic mission to close since late October following those in Spain, Hong Kong, Uganda, Angola and Nepal. A Japanese media outlet previously reported that Pyongyang plans to close over a dozen embassies in total.

“They informed us that for better relocation purposes and for better operational purposes worldwide, they are going to close down a few of their missions,” Toufique Hasan, director general of East Asia for Bangladesh’s foreign ministry, told NK News. 

“But they said that in the future, they have plans to reopen their mission in Bangladesh again.” 

According to the official, North Korean Ambassador Pak Song Yop and three other diplomats previously stationed in the country left for Guangzhou, China on Nov. 20. 

Like after the closure of the country’s embassy in Nepal, the North Korean mission in New Delhi will now take charge of all DPRK affairs in Bangladesh.

Hasan said the embassy closure is unlikely to have any effect on DPRK-Bangladesh relations “because there was not that much engagement with North Korea,” adding that their only discourse had been related to voting at the U.N. 

Earlier this month, DPRK state media attributed the decision to shutter embassies to the “international environment and the state external policy.” The same statement suggested new North Korean missions will open in other countries.

In August, Vice-President of Nicaragua Rosario Murillo told Nicaraguan media that the DPRK plans to set up an embassy in its capital Managua, after sending a formal request for an ambassador to be stationed in Pyongyang. But there has been no confirmation of any new embassies as of yet.

However, former North Korean diplomats Ryu Hyun-woo and Tae Yong-ho told NK News in October that the DPRK’s economic difficulties and the impact of strict U.N. sanctions, which have made it more difficult for diplomatic outposts to generate illicit revenue, are likely behind the closures. 

“I think this may not be the end of the closures,” North Korean economy expert and NK Pro contributor Peter Ward told NK News. “Maybe a lack of funds is driving them, but it seems more likely that they are driven by a belief that many of the embassies have little present or future economic or diplomatic value.” 

Ward believes North Korea is now far less interested in cooperation with developing countries and “sees little chance of being able to engage in useful economic interactions given sanctions.”

North Korea and Bangladesh established diplomatic ties in 1973, shortly after South Korea ended its policy of not maintaining diplomatic relations with states that also recognize the DPRK. 

Cooperation between the two countries has been limited, but North Korea’s Pyongyang restaurant chain did open a branch in Dhaka, where a manager was reportedly arrested for illegal sales of Viagra and alcohol in 2015. At the time, an official at Bangladesh’s Customs Intelligence labeled the restaurant  “a hub of illicit activities.”

More illicit activities arose from there, with multiple North Korean diplomats in the country caught smuggling gold, cigarettes and electronics worth upward of $2 million dollars in 2015 and 2016. This led to the expulsion of the first secretary of the DPRK’s Bangladesh mission, according to reports. 

The U.S. has also issued sanctions against North Korea’s Lazarus Group cybercriminal for allegedly stealing from the Central Bank of Bangladesh’s New York Federal Reserve account in 2016.

The DPRK is reported to owe Bangladesh’s Sonali Bank $11.6 million for goods imported under a barter agreement 26 years ago. Recent reports indicate that Bangladesh’s efforts to contact North Korea about the payment have been unsuccessful. 

Edited by Alannah Hill