It is bad enough that Russia and China actively undermine United Nations sanctions against the Kim regime, but now even South Korea is reportedly helping North Korea evade sanctions as well:
North Korea reportedly transported its coal to a third country via South Korea last year in violation of UN sanctions.
The Voice of America(VOA) issued the report on Tuesday, citing information released by an expert panel under the UN committee monitoring sanctions against North Korea.
The panel said that North Korea shipped its coal from Kholmsk Port in Russia to a third country two times via South Korean ports in Incheon and Pohang on October second and 11th last year.
Earlier this year, the panel said in its previous report that the South Korean ports were the final destinations of the North Korean coal. However, in the latest report, it said the shipments were likely headed to a third country, although it is unconfirmed.
Meanwhile, an official at the South Korean Foreign Ministry said that there is a need to confirm the findings of the report.
The UN Security Council Resolution 2371 adopted in August last year imposed a total ban on all exports of North Korean coal. [KBS World Radio]
The Russian port of Kholmsk sounds like an excellent candidate for secondary customs inspections under section 314 of the KIMS Act. https://t.co/9Zuc42wFFR
The lesson I’ve learned from this and other, similar episodes is that one should be cautious before believing any highly publicized case of China enforcing sanctions against Pyongyang or applying economic pressure to it. I’ve seen this show enough times to suspect that China has a deliberate media manipulation strategy of making a big deal of enforcing sanctions until reporters lose interest. (……)
Take the coal export cap under UNSCR 2321, which later became a coal ban in UNSCR 2371. Remember August, when China announced that it was halting coal imports from North Korea? We’ve since learned that this is yet another case of China initially complying with an obligation, only to resume its cheating as soon as reporters looked the other way. The flaw in this strategy is that nowadays, too many reporters don’t look the other way for long. The sharp-eyed crew at NK News has been especially diligent about spotting North Korean bulk carriers at Chinese coal terminals, but this time, I’ll credit VOA. [One Free Korea]
You can read the rest at the link, but the Chinese are not even trying to hide their cheating considering they imported 509,000 tons of coal last month. It is pretty clear the Chinese government feels they will not be held accountable for cheating on the coal ban and they are probably right.
Like I have said before these sanctions are only as good as they are enforced:
A North Korean military officer, right, and another North Korean stand behind a pile of coal Dec. 14, 2012, along the banks of the Yalu River in the northeast of the North Korean border town of Siniuju. (Wang Zhao/AFP/Getty Images)
The United Nations Security Council voted Saturday for the third time in two years to block countries from buying North Korean coal, the country’s primary export, in a move intended to choke off funding from Kim Jong Un’s weapons programs.
The new ban plugs a loophole that allowed North Korea to sell coal to China under the guise of “humanitarian” trade, even though much of North Korea’s coal trade has been devoted to weapons development, not humanitarian purposes, according to recent U.S. court filings.
The humanitarian loophole was large enough that after the first such U.N. ban in March 2016, Chinese companies actually imported more North Korean coal. [Washington Post]
