SEOUL/UNITED NATIONS, March 2: The U.N. Security Council has approved tough new sanctions against North Korea following its latest nuclear test and long-range missile launch.
U.S. President Barack Obama welcomed the U.N. action. “Today, the international community, speaking with one voice, has sent Pyongyang a simple message: North Korea must abandon these dangerous programs and choose a better path for its people,” he said.
Wednesday’s vote came as a new study by the Security Council details how North Korea has effectively evaded international sanctions in the last decade.
The report, written by a U.N. panel that oversees sanctions violations, acknowledges that the four rounds of increasingly stronger U.N. measures imposed on North Korea since 2006 have failed to persuade Kim Jong Un’s government to abandon its nuclear and ballistic missiles program.
Given North Korea’s recent nuclear test and satellite launch, and its insistence that its nuclear program is needed to deter the U.S. threat, the report raises “serious questions about the efficacy of the current United Nations sanctions regime.”
The U.N. report documents a number of cases where North Korea has evaded sanctions. It reveals how the secretive state continues to use the international financial system, airlines and container shipping routes to trade in prohibited items.
A 2006 U.N. resolution requires member states to report all inspections of North Korean cargo suspected of carrying arms or other products that have military purposes, even if no violation is found. But in the last 10 years, only one member has filed a report.
Southeast Asia, Africa and the Middle East, the report notes, continue to sell North Korea banned military hardware such as unmanned aerial vehicle components and radar systems.
Myanmar’s government was less than cooperative with the U.N. panel when contacted about the possible involvement of Myanmar-based entity Soe Min Htike in attempts to ship aluminum alloy rods to North Korea. The aluminum rods, which can be used to make nuclear centrifuges, were seized in Japan while in transit in 2012. The Korea Mining Development Trading Corp. (KOMID) was designated in April 2009 as a main exporter of North Korean goods and equipment relating to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. But KOMID has been able to circumvent sanctions on its operations by using a different name and working though the Hong Kong shipping company Leader International.Agencies
