N. Korea revives drive to scrap Japanese cars

The drive was launched in 2007 but later suspended because most cars in N. Korea are Japanese made.

Mon, Oct 12, 2009

AFP

SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA (AFP) - North Korea has revived a campaign to ban Japanese cars from its roads, apparently reflecting strained relations between the two nations, a South Korean welfare group said Monday.

The drive was launched in 2007 but later suspended because about 70 percent of cars in the communist country are Japanese, said Good Friends, which works in North Korea.

The group said Pyongyang revived the campaign in June, instructing provincial prosecutors to check for Japanese vehicles in each factory and public enterprise and to report their findings.

The new campaign calls for the elimination of Japanese vehicles by October 8, 2011, with the exception of heavy-duty trucks, it said.

Between July and August, prosecutors in the northern border city of Hyesan dumped 49 Japanese vehicles including ten cars, the group said.

Pyongyang might have stopped the campaign in 2007 "because most cars used by party and government officials are Japanese," Lee Seung-Yong, director of Good Friends, told AFP.

The new campaign reflects the nations' current state of relations, he said.

Yonhap news agency reported in early 2007 that North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il ordered the seizure of all Japanese cars after he spotted a broken-down model blocking a road.

The order might be connected to Japan's push for sanctions against Pyongyang following its first nuclear test in 2006, it said at the time.

Japan intensified pressure after the North's second nuclear test and missile launches. In June, it imposed a total ban on exports.