Feb 4, 2018
North Korea has been selling weapons to the governments of Syria and Myanmar and has been exporting banned materials such as coal, iron, and steel, a United Nations report has found.
According to the report released on Friday, Pyongyang has been assisting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government in developing its nuclear weapons programme and has provided Myanmar’s army with ballistic missiles.
North Korea “continued to export almost all the commodities prohibited in the resolutions, generating nearly $200m in revenue between January and September 2017,” the report read, according to the AFP news agency which has seen a copy.
Coal shipments were delivered to China, Malaysia, South Korea, Russia, and Vietnam by ships using “a combination of multiple evasion techniques, routes and deceptive tactics”, the report added.
Last year, the UN Security Council adopted a series of resolutions aimed at restricting exports, with the objective of cutting off revenue to North Korea’s military programme.
The United States has pushed for tough sanctions against North Korea in response to its missile tests, and together with the UNSC vowed to prevent Pyongyang from furthering its nuclear programme.
According to the report and the UN panel of experts, seven ships have been prevented from entering ports worldwide for violating UN sanctions with coal and petroleum transfers.
They said that much more needed to be done to challenge such “these rampant illicit activities”.
North Korea “is already floating the most recent resolutions by exploiting global oil supply chains, complicit foreign nationals, offshore company registries, and the international banking system”, the panel noted.
