SEOUL: Reports that North Korea illegally exported coal to South Korea via Russia — and Seoul’s initial lack of action — are raising new doubts about how effectively the international sanctions on the Kim Jong Un regime are being enforced.
The suspected smuggling formed part of the backdrop to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s call for vigilant sanctions enforcement at the United Nations Security Council.
North Korea laundered the coal shipments, which began last summer, through the island of Sakhalin in Russia’s Far East, according to reports by a Security Council sanctions committee and other sources.
Ships carrying the coal left the port of Wonsan in the North and were unloaded at Kholmsk on Sakhalin. Non-North Korean ships then carried the coal to South Korean ports including Incheon, according to the reports. Coal has traditionally been one of North Korea’s most important income-producing exports.
The U.S. news agency Voice of America has reported that ships involved in smuggling North Korean coal entered South Korean ports at least 22 times from last October until recently. The ships were registered in Panama and Sierra Leone but operated by Chinese companies, according to the VOA.
South Korea’s government said Thursday that it was aware of the reports and was investigating them.
“If necessary, punishment will be imposed,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk told reporters. Conservative opposition parties seized on the news to attack the government’s handling of the incident.
The Sierra Leone-flagged ship in question reportedly stopped in Japan recently, but it was not known whether the vessel was carrying North Korean coal.
