The U.S. State Department will provide 12 million dollars to organizations working to prevent weapons and missile proliferation by North Korea.

In a notice posted on a U.S. government grant website Thursday, the department said that while the U.S. continues to seek negotiations with North Korea, it maintains the policy that international pressure and sanctions must remain in force until the regime fully denuclearizes.

The department said it supports the pressure campaign against North Korea by training partners to implement UN Security Council resolutions constraining the North's weapons of mass destruction proliferation, to detect and halt sanctions evasion activities and to impede material and financial activities that fund the development of WMDs and related delivery systems.

The announcement said the grants will be available to both domestic and international and for-profit and non-for-profit organizations, and the application deadline is January 31.

The department said it is providing a separate nine-million-dollar grant against chemical weapons proliferation, and mentioned Pyongyang's use of nerve agents overseas, which is believed to refer to the assassination of the North Korean leader's half brother at Kuala Lumpur airport in 2017.

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