South Korea’s coast guard said yesterday it was drawing up guidelines on how to inspect North Korean ships suspected of carrying banned items — a move expected to enrage Pyongyang, which has warned it would consider such inspections a declaration of war.
The move came as a senior US diplomat met with South Korea’s nuclear envoy about implementing UN sanctions punishing Pyongyang for its latest nuclear test and getting the communist regime to return to talks on its nuclear program.
KEY TOPIC
Kurt Campbell, the US assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, also held talks in Japan and was expected in Thailand yesterday for Asia’s main security conference, where North Korea should be a key topic.
“We need to make sure that we’re extremely closely coordinated in a very critical period ahead,” Campbell said at the start of a meeting with Seoul’s nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac.
Wi said the two allies should work closely together to implement the UN sanctions, which include ship searches, and resume stalled nuclear talks.
North Korea quit the talks aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions in April in anger over a UN rebuke after it launched a long-range rocket. It also conducted a nuclear test in May and a series of banned ballistic missile tests early this month.
Campbell on Saturday had urged the impoverished North to return to six-party talks, warning it would otherwise face more isolation and economic hardship.
“Truth of the matter is, down this path North Korea has chosen lie greater tensions, greater hardships for its people, more isolation and lack of engagement in the international economy,” he told journalists.
“I think it’s unsustainable, and we believe that over time, North Korea will ultimately choose to re-engage,” he said.
The stalled talks involved China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the US.
Pyongyang’s No. 2 leader, Kim Yong-nam, said last week that the talks were permanently over because the US and its allies did not respect North Korea’s sovereignty.
BANNED ITEMS
South Korea’s move to draw up the ship inspection guidelines is in line with latest UN sanctions that clamp down on North Korea’s alleged trading of banned arms and weapons-related material, a key source of hard currency for the impoverished nation.
A coast guard official said the guidelines would call for inspecting North Korean ships traveling in South Korean waters if there is concrete evidence they carry banned items. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the issue’s sensitivity, did not give details.
A North Korea ship suspected of heading toward Myanmar with a cargo of banned items turned back home earlier this month after surveillance by the US Navy as part of the UN resolution.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘BODIES EVERYWHERE’: The incident occurred at a Filipino festival celebrating an anti-colonial leader, with the driver described as a ‘lone suspect’ known to police Canadian police arrested a man on Saturday after a car plowed into a street party in the western Canadian city of Vancouver, killing a number of people. Authorities said the incident happened shortly after 8pm in Vancouver’s Sunset on Fraser neighborhood as members of the Filipino community gathered to celebrate Lapu Lapu Day. The festival, which commemorates a Filipino anti-colonial leader from the 16th century, falls this year on the weekend before Canada’s election. A 30-year-old local man was arrested at the scene, Vancouver police wrote on X. The driver was a “lone suspect” known to police, a police spokesperson told journalists at the
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has unveiled a new naval destroyer, claiming it as a significant advancement toward his goal of expanding the operational range and preemptive strike capabilities of his nuclear-armed military, state media said yesterday. North Korea’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Kim attended the launching ceremony for the 5,000-tonne warship on Friday at the western port of Nampo. Kim framed the arms buildup as a response to perceived threats from the US and its allies in Asia, who have been expanding joint military exercises amid rising tensions over the North’s nuclear program. He added that the acquisition
RSS