by Yoni Hersch, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Two shipments of banned supplies from Pyongyang to Damascus intercepted in the past six months, independent panel of U.N. experts says • Panel investigating prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between rogue regimes.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un
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Photo credit: Reuters |
Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian
government agency responsible for the country's chemical weapons program
were intercepted in the past six months, according to a confidential
United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations.
The report by a panel of independent U.N.
experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council earlier this
month gave no details on when or where the interdictions occurred or
what the shipments contained.
"The panel is investigating reported
prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation
between Syria and the DPRK [North Korea]," the experts wrote in the
37-page report.
"Two member states interdicted shipments
destined for Syria. Another Member state informed the panel that it had
reasons to believe that the goods were part of a KOMID contract with
Syria," according to the report.
KOMID is the Korea Mining Development Trading
Corporation. It was blacklisted by the Security Council in 2009 and
described as Pyongyang's key arms dealer and exporter of equipment
related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. In March 2016,
the council also blacklisted two KOMID representatives in Syria.
"The consignees were Syrian entities
designated by the European Union and the United States as front
companies for Syria's Scientific Studies and Research Centre, a Syrian
entity identified by the Panel as cooperating with KOMID in previous
prohibited item transfers," the U.N. experts wrote.
SSRC has overseen the country's chemical weapons program since the 1970s.
The U.N. experts said activities between Syria
and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian
Scud missile programs and maintenance and repair of Syrian
surface-to-air missiles air defense systems.
The North Korean and Syrian missions to the United Nations were unavailable for comment.
The experts said they were also investigating
the use of the VX nerve agent in Malaysia to kill the estranged
half-brother of North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un in February.
North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions
since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the
Security Council has increased measures in response to five nuclear
weapons tests and four long-range missile launches.
Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons
in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. However,
diplomats and weapons inspectors suspect Syria may have secretly
maintained or developed a new chemical weapons capability.
During the country's more than six-year-long civil war
the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said the
banned nerve agent sarin has been used at least twice, while the use of
chlorine as a weapon has been widespread. The Syrian government has
repeatedly denied using chemical weapons.
Yoni Hersch, News Agencies and Israel Hayom Staff
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=44815
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