Tag Archives: United Nations

Iran rejects U.S. demand for U.N. inspector visit to military sites

Iran rejects U.S. demand for U.N. inspector visit to military sites

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran has dismissed a U.S. demand for U.N. nuclear inspectors to visit its military bases as “merely a dream” as Washington reviews a 2015 nuclear agreement between Tehran and six world powers, including the United States.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called the nuclear pact – negotiated under his predecessor Barack Obama – “the worst deal ever”. In April, he ordered a review of whether a suspension of nuclear sanctions on Iran was in the U.S. interest.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, last week pressed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to seek access to Iranian military bases to ensure that they were not concealing activities banned by the nuclear deal.

“Iran’s military sites are off limits … All information about these sites are classified,” Iranian government spokesman Mohammad Baqer Nobakht told a weekly news conference broadcast on state television. “Iran will never allow such visits. Don’t pay attention to such remarks that are only a dream.”

Under U.S. law, the State Department must notify Congress every 90 days of Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal. The next deadline is October, and Trump has said he thinks by then the United States will declare Iran to be non-compliant.

Under terms of the deal, the international nuclear watchdog can demand inspections of Iranian installations if it has concerns about nuclear materials or activities.

IAEA inspectors have certified that Iran is fully complying with the deal, under which it significantly reduced its enriched uranium stockpile and took steps to ensure no possible use of it for a nuclear weapon, in return for an end to international sanctions that had helped cripple its oil-based economy.

During its decade-long stand-off with world powers over its nuclear program, Iran repeatedly rejected visits by U.N. inspectors to its military sites, saying they had nothing to do with nuclear activity and so were beyond the IAEA’s purview.

Shortly after the deal was reached, Iran allowed inspectors to check its Parchin military complex, where Western security services believe Tehran carried out tests relevant to nuclear bomb detonations more than a decade ago. Iran has denied this.

Under the 2015 accord, Iran could not get sanctions relief until the IAEA was satisfied Tehran had answered outstanding questions about the so-called “possible military dimensions” of its past nuclear research.

Iran has placed its military bases off limits also because of what it calls the risk that IAEA findings could find their way to the intelligence services of its U.S. or Israeli foes.

“The Americans will take their dream of visiting our military and sensitive sites to their graves…It will never happen,” Ali Akbar Velayati, a top adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s highest authority, told reporters.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Netanyahu: Iran building missile production sites in Syria, Lebanon

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (R) gestures as he delivers a joint statement with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Jerusalem August 28,

By Jeffrey Heller

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran is building sites to produce precision-guided missiles in Syria and Lebanon, with the aim of using them against Israel.

At the start of a meeting in Jerusalem with U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Netanyahu accused Iran of turning Syria into a “base of military entrenchment as part of its declared goal to eradicate Israel.”

“It is also building sites to produce precision-guided missiles towards that end, in both Syria and in Lebanon. This is something Israel cannot accept. This is something the U.N. should not accept,” Netanyahu said.

Iran, Israel’s arch-enemy, has been Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s staunchest backer and has provided militia fighters to help him in Syria’s civil war.

There was no immediate comment from Iran.

Israel has pointed to Tehran’s steadily increasing influence in the region during the six-year-old Syrian conflict, whether via its own Revolutionary Guard forces or Shi’ite Muslim proxies, especially Hezbollah.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu, in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Israel was prepared to act unilaterally to prevent an expanded Iranian military presence in Syria.

Russia, also an Assad ally, is seen as holding the balance of power in achieving a deal on Syria’s future. Israel fears an eventual Assad victory could leave Iran with a permanent garrison in Syria, extending a threat posed from neighboring Lebanon by Hezbollah.

Netanyahu accused Iran of building the production sites two weeks after an Israeli television report showed satellite images it said were of a facility Tehran was constructing in northwest Syria to manufacture long-range rockets.

The Channel 2 News report said the images were of a site near the Mediterranean coastal town of Baniyas and were taken by an Israeli satellite.

In parallel to lobbying Moscow, Israel has been trying to persuade Washington that Iran and its guerrilla partners, not Islamic State, pose the greater common threat in the region.

 

(Additional reporting and editing by Maayan Lubell; Editing by Richard Balmforth)

 

Kabul mosque attack: four-year-old called to safety

Ali Ahmad, 4, sits with his father as they pose for a photograph at their house after he survived a suicide attack at a mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan August 27, 2017.

By Sayed Hassib

KABUL (Reuters) – A four-year-old boy photographed in a Kabul mosque last week as police desperately tried to call him to safety during an attack by Islamic State gunmen is back with his family but still suffering nightmares, his father said.

Ali Ahmad was with his grandfather in the Shi’ite Imam Zaman mosque on Friday when at least two attackers in police uniforms stormed in, one exploding a suicide-bomb vest and the other firing indiscriminately at the hundreds of worshippers inside.

A picture by Reuters photographer Omar Sobhani showed Ali standing alone in the courtyard of the mosque as policemen taking cover behind a doorway called and waved to him. He survived the attack but his grandfather was among at least 20 killed.

Afghan policemen try to rescue four-year-old Ali Ahmad at the site of a suicide attack followed by a clash between Afghan forces and insurgents after an attack on a Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 25, 2017.

Afghan policemen try to rescue four-year-old Ali Ahmad at the site of a suicide attack followed by a clash between Afghan forces and insurgents after an attack on a Shi’ite Muslim mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

Sayed Bashir, Ali’s father, was nearby but not in the mosque for the initial blast and ran to check on his family.

“Right after the explosion I thought everything was finished,” he said. “I called my father’s mobile phone number and my son answered and said: ‘They killed grandpa’. He wanted me to bring the car and get him.”

“We were running everywhere in search of my son but the police were stopping us and didn’t let us get close,” Bashir said.

Bashir called the number again and was speaking to Ali when another explosion went off.

“I lost hope. I said to myself that everything was finished. I tried the number again but it was switched off,” Bashir said.

In fact, Ali had run around behind the mosque, disregarding the policeman frantically signaling to him in the courtyard. He was rescued soon afterwards but the effects of the attack may take much longer to heal.

Bashir, a building worker who lives in a district with many Shi’ite families, said Ali was still traumatized and having difficulty coming to terms with what happened.

“After the incident, my son has some problems. He’s scared a lot at night,” he said.

The attack, the latest in a series targeting Shi’ite mosques, was claimed by Islamic State Khorasan, the local branch of the group which takes the name of an old region that included what is now Afghanistan.

According to the United Nations, at least 62 civilians have been killed and 119 injured in six separate attacks on Shi’ite mosques this year.

 

(Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Darren Schuettler and Robin Pomeroy)

 

Russian-North Korea projects foundering because of missile tests

A guard walks along a platform past signs, which read "Russia" (L) and "DPRK"(Democratic People's Republic of Korea), at the border crossing between Russia and North Korea in the settlement of Tumangan, North Korea July 18, 2014.

By Polina Nikolskaya and Katya Golubkova

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Commercial ventures planned between Russia and North Korea three years ago are not being implemented because of Pyongyang’s missile testing program, the Minister for the Development of the Russian Far East, Alexander Galushka, said.

Russia has been under international scrutiny over North Korea because it has taken a more doveish approach to Pyongyang than Washington, and Russian trade with North Korea increased sharply at the start of this year.

The United States government earlier this month imposed new North Korea-related sanctions that targeted Russian firms and individuals for, it alleged, supporting Pyongyang’s weapons programs and providing oil.

However Galushka, in an interview with Reuters, said Moscow was faithfully implementing the international sanctions regime on North Korea, and held up the stalled bilateral projects as an indication that Pyongyang was paying an economic price for its weapons program.

“Russia has not violated, does not violate and will not work outside the framework (of the resolution) that was accepted by the U.N. Security Council,” said Galushka, who also heads a Russia-North Korean Intergovernmental Commission.

Russian businesses discussed a number of projects with North Korea in 2014. But then North Korea conducted military tests, including some involving nuclear weapons, and the projects became difficult to implement, Galushka said.

One such project, called “Pobeda”, or “Victory,” would have involved Russian investments and supplies that could be exchanged for access to Korean natural resources.

“We told our North Korean partners more than once … that it hampers a lot, makes it impossible, it restricts things, it causes fear,” Galushka said, referring to the weapons testing.

Another joint project between the two countries is a railway link with North Korea, from the Russian eastern border town of Khasan to Korea’s Rajin.

It is operating but below its potential. The link could work at a capacity of 4 million tonnes a year, officials have said previously, but now it only carries around 1.5 million tonnes of coal per year, according to Galushka.

UN sanctions also prohibit countries from increasing the current numbers of North Korean laborers working in their territories.

According to Galushka, around 40,000 employees from North Korea worked in Russia. Mainly they are engaged in timber processing and construction.

Russian business is interested in access to the North Korea workforce, Galushka said, but the numbers will stay in line with what the sanctions permit.

He said 40,000 workers from North Korea “is a balance formed in the economy, neither more nor less.”

Bilateral trade between the two countries has been decreasing for the last four years, from $112.7 million in 2013 to $76.9 million in 2016, according to Russian Federal Customs Service statistics.

But it more than doubled to $31.4 million in the first quarter of 2017 in year-on-year terms. Most of Russia’s exports to North Korea are oil, coal and refined products.

Asked to explain why trade was rising if political issues were hurting commercial projects, a spokeswoman for Galushka’s ministry said in an email: “According to the latest data, there was an objective increase due to exports to North Korea, primarily oil products. But the export of oil does not violate the agreements of the UN countries in any way.”

The interview with Galushka took place before the U.S. imposed the sanctions targeting Russian entities and individuals for trading with North Korea.

Galushka’s ministry referred questions about the new sanctions to the Russian foreign ministry.

Maria Zakharova, a foreign ministry spokeswoman, told reporters Washington’s unilateral sanctions worsened tensions on the Korean peninsula, and that Russia is fulfilling its international obligations in full.

 

(Editing by Andrew Heavens)

 

U.N. official urges Mexico and U.S. to boost refugee protection

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Filippo Grandi speaks during an interview with Reuters at a hotel in Mexico City, Mexico August 25, 2017. REUTERS/Henry Romero

By Daina Beth Solomon and Lizbeth Diaz

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – The United States and other wealthy nations should do more to resettle migrants and refugees forced to flee their homelands, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Friday.

“We must count on U.S. leadership in refugee protection,” Grandi told Reuters in an interview in Mexico City. “Forced displacement is a poor people problem, not a rich people problem. But we need the rich people to do more to share that burden.”

During his first official visit to the region since assuming the post last year, the U.N. official said Mexico also needs to step up protection for asylum and refugee applicants, especially along its southern border.

Every year thousands of people from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, some of the world’s most impoverished and violent nations, head north in search of a better life.

But that journey has become increasingly dangerous and expensive, with criminals assaulting, extorting and kidnapping migrants as they attempt to pass through Mexico, forcing some to remain south of the U.S. border.

U.N. figures show some 8,000 people applied for refugee status last year in Mexico, up 5,000 from 2015. Asylum applications in Mexico jumped 150 percent between November 2016 and March 2017, according to Mexican refugee agency COMAR.

“There’s been an increase because of the causes that push people to flee – the unbelievable violence perpetrated against civilians in countries like Honduras and El Salvador,” Grandi said.

Grappling with drug trafficking, extortion and kidnapping, Mexico is witnessing one of its worst periods of violence, and has suffered an estimated 150,000 gang-related murders and about 30,000 disappearances in the past decade.

Washington, meanwhile, has heralded a drop in unauthorized southern border crossings as proof its crackdown on illegal immigration is working.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has also lowered the cap on refugee admissions, setting the limit at 50,000 compared with about 85,000 approved in 2016.

U.S. officials have said they plan to review the migrant-vetting process as well to counter the risk of admitting terrorists. Grandi said he supported the push to improve security, but urged the United States to expand its refugee resettlement program.

Mexico is among the countries that could wind up accepting more refugees and asylum seekers if the United States continues toughening its migration policies.

“If less people go to the United States … there is a possibility that Mexico will host more,” Grandi said.

(Editing by Dave Graham and James Dalgleish)

Nuclear inspectors should have access to Iran military bases: Haley

Nuclear inspectors should have access to Iran military bases: Haley

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Friday pressed the International Atomic Energy Agency to seek access to Iranian military bases to ensure that they are not concealing activities banned by the 2015 nuclear deal.

“I have good confidence in the IAEA, but they are dealing with a country that has a clear history of lying and pursuing covert nuclear programs,” Haley told a news conference after returning from a trip to the Vienna-based U.N. agency.

“We are encouraging the IAEA to use all the authorities they have and to pursue every angle possible” to verify compliance with the nuclear deal, she said.

Haley visited the U.N. nuclear watchdog’s headquarters as part of U.S. President Donald Trump’s review of the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), made by former President Barack Obama.

The deal is designed to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons by imposing constraints on its nuclear program in return for the lifting of international sanctions on Tehran. The IAEA concluded that Iran secretly researched a nuclear warhead until 2009, which Tehran denies.

Iran’s top authorities have rejected giving international inspectors access to their military sites and officials have told Reuters any such move would trigger harsh consequences.

“The JCPOA made no distinction between military and non-military sites. There are also numerous undeclared sites that have not been inspected. That is a problem,” said Haley.

Iran is suspected by the IAEA of conducting weapons-related activities at at least one military site years before the 2015 deal.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, a think tank, said that the deal sets out a process for the IAEA to request access to any Iranian site, and that it would be publicly known if such a request was made and rejected.

“The agency to our knowledge has not requested access to any site and been denied,” he said. “Furthermore, the agency cannot and should not seek access to a site simply to test the Iranians’ cooperation. They must have a legitimate reason.”

Kimball charged that the Trump administration “is seeking a pretext” to accuse Iran of not complying with the deal, which Trump has repeatedly vowed to tear up.

Haley also leveled harsh criticism at Irish Major General Michael Beary, the commander of United Nations forces in Lebanon, accusing him of turning a blind eye to Iran’s covert arming of the Hezbollah militant group.

“General Beary says there are no Hezbollah weapons,” she said. “That’s an embarrassing lack of understanding on what’s going on around him,” she said.

(Reporting by Rodrigo Campos and Riham Alkoussa at the United Nations, and Jonathan Landay in Washington; Writing by Jonathan Landay; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Alistair Bell)

U.S. asks if Iran military sites to be checked under nuclear deal

FILE PHOTO: U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley testifies to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on "Advancing U.S. Interests at the United Nations" in Washington, U.S., June 28, 2017. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts/File Photo

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The United States wants to know if the United Nations atomic watchdog plans to inspect Iranian military sites to verify Tehran’s compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said on Tuesday.

Haley will meet with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) officials in Vienna on Wednesday for what she described as a fact-finding mission, which is part of President Donald Trump’s review of the deal Iran made with world powers to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of most sanctions.

“If you look … at past Iranian behavior, what you’ve seen is there have been covert actions at military sites, at universities, things like that,” Haley, a member of Trump’s cabinet, told Reuters in an interview.

“There were already issues in those locations, so are they including that in what they look at to make sure that those issues no longer remain?” she said. “They have the authority to look at military sites now. They have the authority to look at any suspicious sites now, it’s just are they doing it?”

She said she was traveling to Vienna to ask questions, not to push the IAEA to do anything.

A spokesman for the IAEA said it had no immediate comment and that there were no public statements planned on the meeting.

Iran’s top authorities have flatly rejected giving international inspectors access to their military sites, and Iranian officials have told Reuters that any such move would trigger harsh consequences.

“Why would they say that if they had nothing to hide? Why wouldn’t they let the IAEA go there?” Haley said.

Iran’s atomic chief was quoted by state media as saying on Tuesday that Iran could resume production of highly enriched uranium within five days if the nuclear deal was revoked.

In April, Trump ordered a review of whether a suspension of sanctions on Iran related to the nuclear deal – negotiated under President Barack Obama – was in the U.S. national security interest. He has called it “the worst deal ever negotiated.”

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned last week that Iran could abandon the nuclear agreement “within hours” if the United States imposes any more new sanctions.

Most U.N. and Western sanctions were lifted 18 months ago under the nuclear deal. Iran is still subject to a U.N. arms embargo and other restrictions, which are not technically part of the deal.

The IAEA polices restrictions the deal placed on Iran’s nuclear activities and reports quarterly.

Haley said some of the questions she had were: “Are you looking at everything? Are you looking at those places where there has been covert activity in the past? Are you able to get access to these areas? Or are you being delayed? Are you being shut out from those things?”

Under U.S. law, the State Department must notify Congress every 90 days of Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal. The next deadline is October, and Trump has said he thinks by then the United States will declare Iran to be non-compliant.

“We don’t know if he’s going to certify or decertify the deal,” said Haley, adding that she would report back to Trump and the national security team.

The U.S. review of its policy toward Iran is also looking at Tehran’s behavior in the Middle East, which Washington has said undermines U.S. interests in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres believes the Iran nuclear deal is “one of the most important diplomatic achievements in our search for, for peace and stability,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday.

“Everyone involved needs to do its utmost to protect and support that agreement,” Dujarric told reporters.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi, Shadia Nasralla; Editing by Leslie Adler)

U.S., North Korea clash at U.N. forum over nuclear weapons

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspected the Command of the Strategic Force of the Korean People's Army (KPA) in an unknown location in North Korea in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on August 15, 2017. KCNA/via REUTERS

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – North Korea and the United States clashed at a U.N. forum on Tuesday over their military intentions towards one another, with Pyongyang’s envoy declaring it would “never” put its nuclear deterrent on the negotiating table.

Japan, well within reach of North Korea’s missiles, said the world must maintain pressure on the reclusive country to rein in its nuclear and missile programs and now was not the time for a resumption of multi-party talks.

North Korea has pursued its weapons programs in defiance of U.N. Security Council sanctions and ignored all calls, including from major ally China, to stop, prompting a bellicose exchange of rhetoric between the North and the United States.

North Korea justifies its weapons programs, including its recent threat to fire missiles towards the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, by pointing to perceived U.S. hostility, such as military exercises with South Korea this week.

U.S. disarmament ambassador Robert Wood told a U.N.-sponsored Conference on Disarmament in Geneva U.S. President Donald Trump’s top priority was to protect the United States and its allies against the “growing threat” from North Korea and America was ready to use “the full range of capabilities” at its disposal.

The “path to dialogue still remained an option” for Pyongyang and it had the choice between poverty and belligerence on the one hand and prosperity and acceptance.

North Korea’s envoy told the same forum the North’s nuclear deterrent would never be up for negotiation, echoing Pyongyang’s regular denunciation of U.S. “aggression”.

“The measures taken by the DPRK to strengthen its nuclear deterrence and develop inter-continental rockets is justifiable and a legitimate option for self-defense in the face of such apparent and real threats,” diplomat Ju Yong Chol told the forum, referring to “constant nuclear threats” by the United States.

DPRK stands for the North’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Regarding joint U.S.-South Korean military exercises that began on Monday, he warned: “The ongoing military adventure would certainly add gasoline to the fire, driving the current tense situation to further deterioration.”

Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono said pressure must be maintained until the North demonstrated it would give up its nuclear program.

“It’s not the time to discuss (the resumption of) six-party talks,” Kono said, referring to stalled negotiations involving both Koreas, the United States, Russia, China and Japan.

“It’s time to exert pressure,” he told reporters.

‘CRAZY’ TO SHARE TIMELINE

The head of the U.S. military’s Pacific Command said diplomacy was key.

Admiral Harry Harris was in South Korea to observe annual joint military drills with the South Korean military, which the North called a step towards nuclear conflict masterminded by “war maniacs”.

“So we hope and we work for diplomatic solutions to the challenge presented by Kim Jong Un,” Harris told reporters at a U.S. air base in Osan, about an hour from Seoul, referring to the North Korean leader.

He said diplomacy was “the most important starting point” in response to the North’s threat, when asked what actions by North Korea might trigger a preemptive U.S. strike against it.

“As far as a timeline, it would be crazy for me to share with you those tripwires in advance. If we did that, it would hardly be a military strategy,” he said.

The United States and South Korea began the long-planned exercises on Monday, called the Ulchi Freedom Guardian, which the allies have said are purely defensive.

The drills involve tens of thousands of troops as well as computer simulations designed to prepare for war with a nuclear-capable North Korea.

The United States and South Korea are technically still at war with the North because their 1950-53 conflict ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

Delegations from about 20 countries spoke at the four-hour U.N. session, including Britain, France, Australia and South Korea, all of which criticized North Korea.

“I would like to repeat the appeal to the DPRK to listen to the fact that there is no alternative to stopping the different provocations and to return to dialogue,” South Korean ambassador Kim Inchul said.

“We have never threatened the DPRK with any attacks and we have never promoted the use of force.”

(Additional reporting by Christine Kim in Pyeongtaek, South Korea and Tim Kelly and Kiyoshi Takenaka in Tokyo; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Robert Birsel)

U.S. targets Chinese and Russia entities over North Korea

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin walks through the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City, U.S., August 15, 2017. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

By David Brunnstrom and Doina Chiacu

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is imposing new North Korea-related sanctions, targeting Chinese and Russian firms and individuals for supporting Pyongyang’s weapons programs, U.S. officials announced on Tuesday, but stopped short of an anticipated focus on Chinese banks.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control designated six Chinese-owned entities, one Russian, one North Korean and two based in Singapore. They included a Namibia-based subsidiary of a Chinese company and a North Korean entity operating in Namibia.

Six individuals including four Russians, one Chinese and one North Korean were targeted, the Treasury Department said.

The move follows toughened United Nations sanctions agreed this month after North Korea tested its first two intercontinental ballistic missiles in July.

The Treasury Department said the new sanctions targeted those helping already-designated individuals supporting North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its energy trade. They included three Chinese coal importers.

The steps also targeted those helping North Korea send workers abroad and enabling sanctioned North Korea entities to get access to the U.S. and international financial system.

“Treasury will continue to increase pressure on North Korea by targeting those who support the advancement of nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and isolating them from the American financial system,” Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a statement.

“It is unacceptable for individuals and companies in China, Russia, and elsewhere to enable North Korea to generate income used to develop weapons of mass destruction.”

A new round of U.S. sanctions had been expected, but Washington appeared to delay them while securing Chinese and Russian support for tougher U.N. steps.

U.S. officials and U.N. diplomats say the threat of U.S. “secondary sanctions” against Chinese firms with North Korean ties and trade pressure helped persuade China to drop opposition to the U.N. sanctions.

The latest steps stopped short of targeting Chinese financial institutions dealing with North Korea, a step that would have greatly angered Beijing. The Trump administration is still hoping China will pressure Pyongyang.

“The sanctions target a range of North Korea’s illicit activities and the focus on Chinese facilitators is another message to Beijing,” said Anthony Ruggiero, a Foundation for Defense of Democracies senior fellow and former U.S. Treasury official.

“However, there are missing elements. There’s no focus on the efforts of Chinese banks that facilitate these transactions. In addition, these Chinese networks likely have additional front companies operating on behalf of the network and those were not sanctioned.”

China is North Korea’s neighbor and main trading partner and U.S. foreign policy experts say Chinese companies have long had a key role in financing Pyongyang.

The Chinese and Russians embassies in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. China has said in the past it is strongly opposed to unilateral sanctions outside the U.N. framework, and has accused the United States of using “long-arm” jurisdiction in targeting Chinese entities.

(Additional reporting by Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by David Alexander and Jeffrey Benkoe)

North Korea shipments to Syria chemical arms agency intercepted: U.N. report

North Korea shipments to Syria chemical arms agency intercepted: U.N. report

By Michelle Nichols

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country’s chemical weapons program were intercepted in the past six months, according to a confidential United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations.

The report by a panel of independent U.N. experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month and seen by Reuters on Monday, gave no details on when or where the interdictions occurred or what the shipments contained.

“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 37-page report.

“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,” according to the report.

KOMID is the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. It was blacklisted by the 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 consignees were Syrian entities designated by the European Union and the United States as front companies for Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a Syrian entity identified by the Panel as cooperating with KOMID in previous prohibited item transfers,” the U.N. experts wrote.

SSRC has overseen the country’s chemical weapons program since the 1970s.

The U.N. experts said activities between Syria and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian Scud missile programs and maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles air defense systems.

The North Korean and Syrian missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The experts said they were also investigating the use of the VX nerve agent in Malaysia to kill the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in February.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and four long-range missile launches.

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.

During the country’s more than six-year long civil war the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said the banned nerve agent sarin has been used at least twice, while the use of chlorine as a weapon has been widespread. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Tom Brown)