Japan and the United States agreed Wednesday to continue to work closely together to deal with North Korea's alleged illegal financial activities, Foreign Ministry officials said Wednesday.
The agreement came during a 45-minute meeting between Akitaka Saiki, a ministry official who has handled relations with North Korea and is now a minister at the Japanese Embassy in the United States, and Daniel Glaser, deputy assistant secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes at the U.S. Treasury Department.
Saiki, former deputy chief of the ministry's Asian and Oceanian Affairs Bureau and ex-chief negotiator for Japan-North Korea talks, said at the outset of the meeting that he wanted to ask a U.S. Treasury team, led by Glaser, about the outcome of its probes into Pyongyang's alleged illegal financial activities, which include counterfeiting.
Glaser's Japan visit comes after going to Beijing, Macau, Hong Kong and Seoul, where he had meetings with officials about Banco Delta Asia, the Macau-based bank the U.S. has called a "primary money-laundering concern," alleging it is a front for North Korea's illicit financial activities.