The UN Security Council slapped sanctions on five individuals and five entities from North Korea known to be involved in Pyongyang's banned nuclear and ballistic missile activities.

After weeks of bargaining, the council's sanctions panel reached agreement on an expanded sanctions list that also includes two items identified as "graphite designed or specified for use in Electrical Discharge Machining (EDM) machines" and "Para-aramid fiber (Kevlar and other Kevlar-like) filament and tape."

The measures were mandated under a UN Security Council resolution adopted 12 June, which imposed sanctions on the Stalinist state following its 25 May underground nuclear test.

That resolution also called for beefed up inspections of air, sea and land shipments going to and from North Korea, and an expanded arms embargo.

The 15-member council then directed its sanctions panel to agree on a list of additional individuals and entities to be targeted for sanctions including a travel ban and an assets freeze.

The head of the panel, Turkish diplomat Fazli Corman, named five senior officials linked to North Korea's banned nuclear, ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes who will be subjected to the sanctions.

The five include Yun Ho-Jin, head of Namchongang Trading Corporation, which oversees the import of items needed for the uranium enrichment programme and Han Yu-Ro, head of Korea Ryongaksan General Trading Corporation, and involved in North Korea's ballistic missile programme.

Five entities involved in illicit proliferation activities were also named as targets for an assets freeze, including:

• Namchongang Trading Corporation, which has been involved in procuring Japanese-origin vacuum pumps identified at a North Korean nuclear facility and in nuclear-related procurement associated with a German individual;


• Hong Kong Electronics, which has facilitated the movement of money from Iran to North Korea;


• General Bureau of Atomic Energy (GBAE), which is responsible for the country's nuclear programme, including the Yongbyon Nuclear Research Center and its plutonium production research reactor, as well as its fuel fabrication and reprocessing facilities.

Corman said the measures, endorsed by all 15 members, "demonstrated the council's unity and resolve" and were carefully targeted at North Korea's nuclear weapons, ballistic missile and weapons of mass destruction programmes.

They were designed "to minimise any unintended consequences for the people" of North Korea, he added.

Japan's UN Ambassador Yukio Takasu, whose country feels particularly threatened by Pyongyang's nuclear weapons programme and ballistic missile activities, immediately welcomed the new measures.

The United States also applauded the panel's decision, made ahead of an extended deadline of 19 July.

"We are pleased with the new international sanctions agreed upon today in response to North Korea's nuclear tests and recent missile activity," US Ambassador Susan Rice said in a statement.

"These new designations... strengthen the sanctions regime against North Korea and will serve to constrain North Korea from engaging in transactions or activities that could fund its WMD or proliferation activities."

The United States had been pushing for tough enforcement of the sanctions while China, a long-time ally of North Korea, has traditionally been more cautious.

"These further measures place DPRK's trading activity under close scrutiny and includes important measures to clamp down on DPRK's proliferation activities and thereby the means with which it funds and develops its nuclear and WMD program," said British UN Ambassador John Sawers.

Previous UN sanctions targeted North Korean companies, freezing their overseas assets, but did not apply to individuals.

Since a long-range rocket launch in early April, the Stalinist state has staged its second nuclear test, fired a variety of shorter-range missiles, renounced the truce in force on the Korean peninsula and quit nuclear disarmament talks.

US and South Korean officials believe ailing leader Kim Jong-Il (67) is staging a show of strength to bolster his authority as he tries to put in place a succession plan involving his youngest son Jong-Un.

AFP

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