NKorea ship suspected of carrying missiles

Clean1

Whats your thoughts on this?

SEOUL, South Korea - A U.S. Navy destroyer is tailing a North Korean ship suspected of carrying illicit weapons toward Myanmar in what could be the first test of new U.N. sanctions against the North over its recent nuclear test, a leading TV network said Sunday.

The South Korean news network YTN, citing an unidentified intelligence source in the South, said the U.S. suspects the cargo ship Kang Nam is carrying missiles and related parts. Myanmar�s military government, which faces an arms embargo from the United States and the European Union, has reportedly bought weapons from North Korea.

YTN said the U.S. has deployed a destroyer and is using satellites to track the ship, which was expected to travel to Myanmar via Singapore.

South Korea�s Defense Ministry, Unification Ministry and National Intelligence Service said they could not confirm the report. Calls to the U.S. military command in Seoul were not answered late Sunday.

The ship is reportedly the first North Korean vessel to be tracked under the new U.N. sanctions.

Two U.S. officials said Thursday that the U.S. military had begun tracking the ship, which left a North Korean port Wednesday and was traveling off the coast of China.

One of the officials said it was uncertain what the Kang Nam was carrying, but that it had been involved in weapons proliferation before. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence.

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have spiked since North Korea defiantly conducted its second nuclear explosion on May 25. It later declared it would expand its atomic bomb program and threatened war to protest the U.N. sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear test.

The sanctions toughen an earlier arms embargo against North Korea and authorize ship searches in an attempt to thwart its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The Security Council resolution calls on all 192 U.N. member states to inspect vessels on the high seas �if they have information that provides reasonable grounds to believe that the cargo� contains banned weapons or material to make them, and if approval is given by the country whose flag the ship sails under.

If the country refuses to give approval, it must direct the vessel �to an appropriate and convenient port for the required inspection by the local authorities.�

President Barack Obama said the sanctions will be aggressively enforced after talks Tuesday with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak in Washington. Obama also reaffirmed the U.S. security commitment to South Korea, including nuclear protection.

In its first response to the summit, North Korea�s government-run weekly Tongil Sinbo said Obama�s comments revealed a U.S. plot to invade the North with nuclear weapons.

�It�s not a coincidence at all for the U.S. to have brought numerous nuclear weapons into South Korea and other adjacent sites, staging various massive war drills opposing North Korea every day and watching for a chance for an invasion,� it said in a commentary published Saturday.

North Korea says its nuclear program is a deterrent against the U.S., which it routinely accuses of plotting to topple its communist regime. The U.S., which has 28,500 troops in South Korea, has repeatedly said it has no such intention and has no nuclear weapons there.

Tylr · Posted: 21 Jun 2009 01:32 pm Post subject:

Not suprised.
North Korea is full of crazy bastards.

Tyrael · Posted: 21 Jun 2009 01:43 pm Post subject:

I am not surprised either, what with the launches they have ben performing, unauthorized and unchecked by the U.N.

Clean1 · Posted: 21 Jun 2009 01:49 pm Post subject:

ya true. i have a feeling something bad is gunna happen in the near future.

Skamakaze · Posted: 21 Jun 2009 04:20 pm Post subject:

Honestly... I'm not worried about North Korea one bit. They've been doing the same thing for years. All they do is make threats followed by no action. They know that attacking ANY country enforcing sanctions on them would be a big deadly mistake on their part.