UN lifts sanctions on 4 North Korea ships

The UN. Security Council agreed on Monday to a Chinese request to remove sanctions on four ships the United Nations had blacklisted forties to Pyongyang’s arms trade. The agreement came after China secured assurances the vessels would not use North Korean crews, a US official said.

China asked the United States on March 16 for help removing the ships from the UN blacklist, according to a diplomatic cable sent the same day from the US permanent mission at the United Nations to a group of other US embassies.

The cable, reviewed by Reuters, showed wrangling between top diplomats from the United States and China over the tough new North Korea sanctions, weeks after Washington had presented a united front with Beijing, Pyongyang’s main ally and trade partner.

The US mission at the United Nations declined to comment on the cable or make its ambassador, Samantha Power, available for an interview about the cable.

The US Treasury Department, which administers US Economic and financial sanctions, also declined to comment.

The removal of the four ships was confirmed in a press release, which was seen by Reuters and will soon be issued by the security council, according to UN diplomats.

While Washington has been the driving force behind the toughening international sanctions regime, China conducts 90 per cent of the trade with North Korea and is the key to enforcing them.

The ships were among 31 vessels sanctioned by the 15-member council on March 2 because they were linked to Ocean Maritime Management (OMM), a North Korean shipping firm known to transport arms and other illicit goods for the secretive state.

“We discovered that they are not OMM ships,” Chinese UN ambassador Liu Jieyi told Reuters on Monday.