A Japanese daily said that the U.S. rejected South Korea’s request to make inter-Korean economic exchange projects an exception in international sanctions on North Korea. 

The Yomiuri Shimbun quoted diplomatic sources in South Korea, the U.S. and Japan as saying on Tuesday that the U.S. refused the request during working-level preparations for the South Korea-U.S. summit that was held in Washington on May 21. 

According to the newspaper, the phrase in the joint statement issued after the summit stating that the two countries agreed to fine-tune views for an identical approach toward the North reflects the U.S.’ intent to block South Korea from independently providing support to the North. 

The report added that the reason National Intelligence Service Director Park Jie-won met with Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns during his trip to the U.S. late last month was to again push the request for Washington to ease sanctions.