HANOI -- The Vietnamese government has expelled a North Korean official put on the UN Security Council's sanctions list over its nuclear and missile development, diplomatic sources said Monday.

Vietnam requested Kim Dong-ho, chief of the North's Tanchon Commercial Bank's branch, to leave the country and he returned home in mid-July, the sources said.

Kim is one of 14 North Koreans designated as individual targets for travel bans and asset freezes by Resolution 2356 adopted on June 2 in the wake of the North's ballistic missile tests. The bank was also blacklisted by the Security Council in April 2009 as an entity involved in Pyongyang's weapons programs, illicit arms sales and money laundering.
 
In April last year, Choe Song-il, then deputy representative for the branch, also left Vietnam at the Vietnamese government's request after he was blacklisted by Resolution 2270 adopted in the previous month following the North's nuclear and missile tests.

In its report to the UN in June that year, the Hanoi government said it was completely implementing the resolution as a member nation.

Hanoi expelled the North Koreans in the form of a voluntary departure taking into account its traditionally close relations with the North, the sources said. (Yonhap)