SEOUL: South Korea yesterday welcomed the seizure off Panama of a North Korean ship suspected of carrying weapons and urged the United Nations to take up the case.
“The government appreciates the Panamanian government’s stoppage of a North Korea vessel carrying a suspicious cargo,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
“If the shipment turns out to be in breach of UN resolutions, we expect the UN Security Council’s sanctions committee to take relevant steps expeditiously.”
Panama said on Tuesday it had found military equipment believed to be missiles concealed in a cargo of sugar, after impounding the ship and conducting a search for drugs. It has urged UN inspectors to scrutinise the cargo, which could constitute a violation of the strict arms sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear and missile programmes.
Cuba said on Tuesday evening that the ship was loaded at one of its ports with 10,000 tons of sugar and 240 tons of “obsolete defensive weaponry,” according to a statement by the Cuban Foreign Ministry.
Cuba said the weapons were being sent back to North Korea for repair and included two anti-aircraft missile batteries, nine disassembled rockets, two MiG-21 fighter jets, and 15 MiG-21 engines, all Soviet-era military weaponry “manufactured in the mid-20th century” and “to be repaired and returned to Cuba”.
Britain’s UN Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant said yesterday the North Korean cargo ship appears to have violated a UN arms embargo on Pyongyang, .
“Clearly the facts still need to be established,” Grant told reporters.
“But on the face of it, the transfer of these weapons to North Korea would be a violation of the sanctions regime on North Korea,” he said. “Therefore there are questions to be answered, which need to be followed up.”
The UN arms embargo on North Korea covers all exports by Pyongyang and most imports, with the exception of small arms and light weapons and related materiel. But in order to export small arms to Pyongyang, states must notify the UN North Korean sanctions committee in advance.
Analysts in Seoul said the North, which launched a long-range rocket to put a satellite into orbit last December, was fully capable of providing missile repair services for other countries.
AGENCIES
