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Suspected North Korea arms ship changes course
Wed Jul 1, 2009 2:41am EDT
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By Jon Herskovitz
SEOUL (Reuters) - A North Korean ship tracked by the U.S. Navy on suspicion of carrying a banned arms cargo may be returning home, a U.S. official said, as Washington cracks down on companies helping Pyongyang export missile systems.
North Korea will find it increasingly difficult to trade arms due to U.S. moves and U.N. sanctions to punish it for a May nuclear test, but those measure will not end the weapons exports the destitute state relies on for foreign currency, experts said.
"Of course, it raises the costs of doing the arms and weapons of mass destruction business, but it won't stop them from trying to circumvent the sanctions," said Daniel Pinkston with the International Crisis Group in Seoul.
The North Korean cargo ship Kang Nam was the first to be monitored by the U.S. Navy under a new system to track the North's arms shipments that were a part of the U.N. sanctions.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Tuesday the Kang Nam was heading back in the direction of North Korea after turning around within the last few days.
"We've no idea where it's going," the official said. "The U.S. didn't do anything to make it turn around."
The ship was suspected of carrying missile parts and had been headed toward Myanmar, South Korean broadcaster YTN had quoted an intelligence source as saying. North Korea and Myanmar have drawn closer in recent years, perhaps deepening their affinity as the world moves to increasingly isolate them, analysts said.
Monday Japanese police arrested three people, including one North Korean resident of Japan, on suspicion of trying to export to Myanmar a magnetic measuring device that could be used in missile construction, the Yomiuri newspaper said.
Tightening the screws further, the U.S. Treasury and State Departments said they had targeted North Korea's Namchongang Trading Corp and Iran's Hong Kong Electronics under an executive order that would freeze their U.S. assets and bar U.S. firms from dealing with them.
"North Korea uses front companies like Hong Kong Electronics and a range of other deceptive practices to obscure the true nature of its financial dealings, making it nearly impossible for responsible banks and governments to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate North Korean transactions," Stuart Levey, undersecretary of the treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence.
CALLING ON CHINA
The moves came as Philip Goldberg, U.S. envoy for coordinating arms and other sanctions against North Korea under a recent U.N. resolution, was set to leave for Beijing, seeking to enlist China's help in targeting the North's weapons program.
China, the North's biggest benefactor, backed a U.N. resolution condemning the North's nuclear test and imposing fresh sanctions on its arms trade, but Beijing has long been reluctant to press for more.
China, fearing a collapse in the North's government and the chaos that would cause on its border, supplies the North with oil, food and other items that prop up its wobbly economy.
"As long as China, to a large extent, and Russia, to a lesser extent, do not implement the sanctions, they will not work," said Cho Myungchul, a research fellow at the South's Korea Institute for International Economic Policy, who was an academic in North Korea before defecting to the South. Continued...
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