This follows a rift in the relationship between the two nations after the murder of Kim Jong Nam, the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un, in Kuala Lumpur in February.
The report noted that Malaysia and North Korea used to have friendly relations.
However, after the killing of Jong Nam at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Feb 13, relations between the two nations soured. Several North Koreans were implicated in the murder, and both governments expelled each other’s ambassador and imposed tit-for-tat exit bans on each other’s nationals.
Many of the 1,000 or so North Koreans working in Malaysia, mostly at coal mines and construction sites in Sarawak, are said to have since returned home.
A Korean restaurant in Kuala Lumpur closed shop and the workers returned home in May, when their work permits were not renewed, the Kyodo report noted.
It said the unilateral economic sanctions measure imposed by Malaysia was in line with the request of the United States for countries to cut off sources of funds that could be used by North Korea for its nuclear and ballistic missile development programmes.
It said North Korea had dispatched tens of thousands of workers to China, Russia, Southeast Asia and elsewhere to earn foreign currency needed to fund its weapons programmes.
The report said if other countries were to follow Malaysia’s lead, it could deal a serious blow to North Korea.
Kyodo reported US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson as having said on Tuesday that an estimated 50,000 to 80,000 North Koreans had been sent overseas, primarily to Russia and China, as “forced laborers.”
He had said that many of these North Koreans worked 20 hours a day and that most of their pay was confiscated by their government, which “receives hundreds of millions of dollars per year from the fruits of forced labour”.
Tillerson said: “Responsible nations simply cannot allow this to go on, and we continue to call on any nation that is hosting workers from North Korea in a forced labour arrangement to send those people home.”