Dubai, August 30: The United Arab Emirates has seized a cargo of North Korean weapons being shipped in breach of a UN embargo on arms exports from the communist state, according to Western diplomats.
The weapons, seized on the basis of the country’s own intelligence reports, included rocket launchers, detonators, munitions and ammunition for rocket-propelled grenades, they said. The Australian-operated ship, ANL-Australia, was flying a Bahamas flag.
UAE authorities, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Federal Customs Authority, Dubai Customs and Dubai Police, would not comment when contacted by Khaleej Times on Saturday.
US-based diplomats on Friday said the UAE reported the August 14 incident to the Security Council sanctions committee on North Korea. The committee sent letters to Pyongyang on August 25 informing them of the seizure and demanding a response within 15 days.
“Based on past experience … we don’t expect a very detailed response,” one of the diplomats said on condition of anonymity.
The Australian firm whose ship was seized is controlled by French conglomerate CMA CGM, the world’s third-largest shipping container company. The diplomats said the actual export was arranged by the Shanghai office of an Italian company. They did not name the firms involved. The ship is a 233m vessel that was built by a South Korean company in 1991.
“The cargo was deceptively labelled,” said a diplomat. “The cargo manifest said that the ship contained oil boring machines. But then you opened it up and you found these arms.”
Diplomats said North Korea appeared to be in breach of Security Council resolution 1874, which banned all arms exports from North Korea and authorised states to search suspicious ships and seize and destroy banned items.
The resolution was imposed after North Korea’s second nuclear test in May.
The council imposed sanctions on Pyongyang after its first test in October 2006, but the measures were never enforced, mainly because China showed no interest in seeing them implemented.
An Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said the country’s federal government was investigating the case to determine whether any of its laws had been broken, according to the Melbourne newspaper The Age.
Diplomats said the UAE seizure was an important success for the beefed-up North Korean sanctions regime and would hopefully deter further attempts at skirting sanctions.
–Agencies