A Security Council committee on Friday placed three North Korean companies on a UN blacklist for aiding Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs, eliciting a sharp rebuke from a North Korean envoy. The North Korea sanctions committee met a Friday deadline set by the Security Council on April 13 to produce a list of goods and North Korean entities to be blacklisted under Security Council resolution 1718, passed after Pyongyang's October 2006 nuclear test.
The three companies put on the list are Korea Mining Development Trading Corp, Korea Ryongbong General Corp and Tranchon Commercial Bank, according to a copy of the committee's decision obtained by Reuters. The decision said the three companies were linked to the military and active in procuring equipment and financing for North Korea's ballistic missile and other weapons programs.
The blacklisting prohibits companies and nations around the world from doing business with the three firms, but the impact of the action might be largely symbolic. One Western diplomat said the three blacklisted firms had subsidiaries that also would be subject to UN sanctions.
Committee members also decided to ban the import and export of items on an internationally recognised list of sensitive technologies used to build long-range missiles capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. The committee's decision came in response to a Security Council statement condemning North Korea's April 5 long-range rocket launch and demanding tougher enforcement of financial sanctions and an arms embargo against Pyongyang.
-- Britain says assets of the three firms must be frozen
-- US envoy says decision is 'serious, credible response'
Prior to the launch, the sanctions committee had not met for two years. The committee is comprised of the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and 10 other Security Council members. Britain's UN Ambassador John Sawers said the decision meant that UN member states would be obligated to freeze the assets of the three firms, adding that the measures were "legally binding on all UN member states."
He said the unanimous agreement within the committee was "a major step forward in terms of international action to disrupt and deter (North Korea's) WMD and ballistic missile programs." A US official told Reuters the committee's decision was "a serious and credible response to the launch." North Korea's Deputy UN Ambassador Pak Tok Hun told reporters that his country rejected Friday's decision.
"The discussion on the sanctions in the Security Council against (North) Korea for its satellite launch is itself a wanton violation of the United Nations charter," Pak said. "It is the inalienable right of every nation and country to make peaceful use of outer space," he said. "That is why we totally reject and do not recognise any sort of decision which has been made ... in the Security Council."
The United States, Japan and South Korea have accused Pyongyang of launching a ballistic missile in violation of Security Council resolution 1718 of October 2006 that forbids North Korea from firing such missiles. North Korea says it launched a satellite and was not in breach of the resolution. The United States had originally proposed a list of 11 North Korean firms it had hoped to blacklist, and Japan added three more firms.
The list was trimmed in response to objections from Russia, China and several other delegations, council diplomats said. After the Security Council's statement on April 13, Pyongyang announced it would boycott six-nation nuclear disarmament talks and restart a plant that makes bomb-grade plutonium.
It threatened war with South Korea if it joined a US initiative to halt the proliferation of illicit weapons. Even though resolution 1718 imposed financial sanctions, banned arms sales and imposed a limited trade embargo on North Korea, the measures were largely ignored once Pyongyang returned to aid-for-disarmament talks with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea in 2006.
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