Panama calls in UN to check North Korean ship carrying old weapons
THE UN Security Council has been called in to investigate a North Korean ship caught smuggling arms from Cuba through the Panama Canal, reports Reuters.
Panama stopped the ship and seized its cargo after a stand-off with the North Korean crew in which the captain tried to slit his own throat.
Panamanian authorities said they found missile equipment, MiG fighter jets and other arms aboard that Cuba said were "obsolete" Soviet-era weapons being sent to North Korea for repair.
Five UN investigators, including one from the Security Council, are expected to arrive around the beginning of August once the ship, the geared 36-year-old 13,990 dwt Chong Chon Gang, will be unloaded, which may take 10 days after the crew sabotaged the electrical system that runs the shipboard cranes.
The North Korean government urged Panama to release the ship and its crew, who were detained and are in the process of being charged for failing to declare the arms on board.
"This cargo is nothing but aging weapons, which are to send back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a legitimate contract," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency.
Agreeing, Hal Klepak, an expert on the Cuban military and a warfare professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, said Cuba was "using weapons and equipment of staggeringly old vintage" that it needed to maintain what arms it has.
"Cuba cannot afford to buy anything newer and does not have repair facilities of its own. Thus if it is not to scrap them, it must repair them," said Mr Klepak.
According to Cuba, the weapons include two anti-aircraft missile batteries, nine disassembled rockets, two MiG-21 fighter jets and 15 MiG-21 engines, all Soviet-era military weaponry built in the middle of the last century.
THE UN Security Council has been called in to investigate a North Korean ship caught smuggling arms from Cuba through the Panama Canal, reports Reuters.
Panama stopped the ship and seized its cargo after a stand-off with the North Korean crew in which the captain tried to slit his own throat.
Panamanian authorities said they found missile equipment, MiG fighter jets and other arms aboard that Cuba said were "obsolete" Soviet-era weapons being sent to North Korea for repair.
Five UN investigators, including one from the Security Council, are expected to arrive around the beginning of August once the ship, the geared 36-year-old 13,990 dwt Chong Chon Gang, will be unloaded, which may take 10 days after the crew sabotaged the electrical system that runs the shipboard cranes.
The North Korean government urged Panama to release the ship and its crew, who were detained and are in the process of being charged for failing to declare the arms on board.
"This cargo is nothing but aging weapons, which are to send back to Cuba after overhauling them according to a legitimate contract," a North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman was quoted as saying by the official KCNA news agency.
Agreeing, Hal Klepak, an expert on the Cuban military and a warfare professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, said Cuba was "using weapons and equipment of staggeringly old vintage" that it needed to maintain what arms it has.
"Cuba cannot afford to buy anything newer and does not have repair facilities of its own. Thus if it is not to scrap them, it must repair them," said Mr Klepak.
According to Cuba, the weapons include two anti-aircraft missile batteries, nine disassembled rockets, two MiG-21 fighter jets and 15 MiG-21 engines, all Soviet-era military weaponry built in the middle of the last century.