North Korea shipped goods to Syrian chemical weapons agency
NORTH Korea has twice been caught trying to ship material to Syria’s chemical weapons agency in the past six months, according to a confidential UN report prepared by a panel of experts.
Two unnamed countries intercepted the shipments. Their contents were not disclosed in the 37-page report. The shipments were destined for what are believed to be front companies for Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a Syrian government agency which has overseen the country’s chemical weapons programme since the Seventies.
The shipments were sent by Komid, the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation, an organisation blacklisted by the UN security council in 2009, and described as Pyongyang’s key arms dealer and exporter of equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons.
In March 2016 the council also blacklisted two Komid representatives in Syria.
“The panel is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between Syria and the DPRK (North Korea),” the experts wrote in the report, which was submitted to the security council earlier this month and obtained by Reuters on Monday.
“Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria.
“Another member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of a Komid contract with Syria.”
The UN experts said activities between Syria and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian Scud missile programmes and maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles air defence systems.
Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. However, diplomats and weapons inspectors suspect Syria may have secretly maintained or developed a new chemical weapons capability.
The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons, but has twice been suspected of carrying out sarin nerve gas attacks, as well as chlorine attacks.