SEOUL, May 14, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – North Korea on Tuesday demanded the return
of a cargo ship seized by Washington last week for violating international
sanctions, calling it an “illegal act of robbery”.
On Friday, the US Justice Department said it had taken possession of the
North Korea-registered bulk carrier M/V Wise Honest, one year after it was
detained in Indonesia, citing illicit sanctions-busting activities.
It was the first time a North Korean cargo vessel had been seized by the
US for sanctions violations, after several years of high seas cat-and-mouse
games in which Korean shippers disguised vessels, used false flags and turned
off their tracking transponders to avoid discovery.
A spokesman for the North’s foreign ministry slammed the move on Tuesday,
saying it was an outright violation of the spirit of a deal signed by leader
Kim Jong Un and US President Donald Trump at their landmark summit in
Singapore last June.
“The United States carried out an illegal act of robbery by seizing our
cargo ship citing UN Security Council sanctions resolutions,” the spokesman
said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA).
The move was an “extension of US calculation” to bring Pyongyang to its
knees through maximum pressure, he said.
“The US must realise the consequence of its gangster-like actions… and
must return our ship without delay,” the statement added.
North Korea is sanctioned under multiple UN Security Council resolutions
for its nuclear and missile programmes and lifting of some of the measures
was a key demand at a second Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi in February that
ultimately broke down without a deal.
The announcement of the US seizure of the vessel came as tensions rose
over Pyongyang’s test launches of short-range missiles last week.