Kyodo News Agency on Thursday defended the legality of its bureau in Pyongyang, amid reports in Japan suggesting the company’s activities in the DPRK represented a “loophole” in Japanese unilateral sanctions against the DPRK.

The comments come in response to a report in the October issue of Japanese monthly magazine Sentaku, which investigated Kyodo News’s remittances to North Korea and the editorial independence of its bureau.

“The Pyongyang Bureau is a news-gathering base necessary for our activities,” a Kyodo News spokesperson told NK News. “We operate the bureau lawfully.”

Kyodo, a non-profit and one of Japan’s leading news agencies, was