Amid protests from congressional leaders from both parties, the Obama Administration is helping an obscure United Nations agency limit an investigation into whether it shipped computers and sophisticated servers to North Korea, in violation of the U.N.'s own sanctions against the communist regime.

The Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, told Fox News on Friday that a "full independent external inquiry" into the murky issue would start next week. The "modalities and terms of reference of this inquiry," a WIPO spokesman declared, "have been completed in close consultation with the U.S. Department of State."

A State Department spokesman subsequently told Fox News that "we are aware" of the inquiry and that it was being conducted by a "very credible investigator."

The same spokesman underlined that the State Department "has taken this issue very seriously since it came to our attention in March" and that "we have been working with WIPO to get to the bottom of this," a process that has involved "asking and pressuring" the U.N.