South Korea claims ship seizure as Trump denounces oil flows to Pyongyang

Charles Clover in Beijing

December 29, 2017

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South Korea said on Friday that it had seized a Hong Kong-registered ship it accuses of transferring oil to North Korea, in an announcement that came hours after Donald Trump threatened to take trade action against Beijing for allowing petrol supplies to reach Pyongyang.

Yonhap, South Korea’s state-run news agency, said the vessel, the Lighthouse Winmore, had broken UN sanctions by secretly transferring 600 tonnes of refined petroleum to a North Korean ship in international waters in October.

The ship, whose owner and manager is based in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, according to maritime intelligence company Equasis, was searched and seized by South Korean authorities when it entered the port of Yeosu in late November.

Officials quoted by Yonhap said South Korea had shared intelligence with the US about the transaction, which took place in the East China Sea, and is one of a series of reported violations involving China of UN sanctions against Pyongyang.

Mr Trump has vented his anger after reports of other such ship-to-ship transfers of oil products at sea that were documented by US reconnaissance satellites.

“Caught RED HANDED,” he tweeted on Thursday. “Very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea. There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!”

Mr Trump later said he had been “soft” on China’s trade practices in return for Beijing’s co-operation in dealing with Pyongyang, but suggested his patience was wearing thin.

“If they don’t help us with North Korea, then I do what I’ve always said I want to do,” he told the New York Times, in an apparent threat to take trade measures against China. “They have to help us much more,” he said “We have a nuclear menace out there, which is no good for China.”

The US administration has led efforts to escalate sanctions against North Korea to force it to give up nuclear weapons. Mr Trump has also pushed China to use its sway with Pyongyang — but China insists it has no leverage.

Images published by the US Treasury show an alleged October attempt by a North Korean ship to conduct a ship-to-ship transfer to evade sanctions

Beijing has supported UN sanctions against Pyongyang but has also often tried to soften them, saying they are counterproductive and may provoke a humanitarian catastrophe on its border.

Oil exports to North Korea were severely capped by a UN Security Council resolution in September following Pyongyang’s most recent nuclear test.

Since then, US reconnaissance satellites have documented 30 cases of Chinese and North Korean ships linking up at sea, apparently transferring oil or oil products, according to South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, citing Seoul government officials.

Diplomats from an Asian country confirmed this week that such ship-to-ship trading persisted.

Beijing on Friday reiterated criticism of the South Korean reports as it responded to Mr Trump’s comments.

“The recent series of reports on this situation do not conform with the facts,” said Hua Chunying, foreign ministry spokeswoman, adding that Beijing did not allow its “citizens or companies to engage in any activities that violate” UN resolutions.

Ship-to-ship trading of sanctioned goods was specifically banned in September’s UN resolution, which also capped the amount of oil products North Korea is allowed to import at 500,000 barrels for the last three months of 2017, and at 2m a year thereafter.

New sanctions this month slashed the limit on oil product imports next year even further, to 500,000 barrels — 90 per cent lower than normal levels — following a ballistic missile test last month by Pyongyang.

Additional reporting by Song Jung-a in Seoul and Don Weinland in Hong Kong

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