Reuters, Seoul :
North Korea has developed sophisticated techniques to circumvent UN sanctions, including the suspected use of its embassies to facilitate an illegal trade in weapons, a United Nations report said.
It said North Korea was also making use of more complicated financial countermeasures that made the isolated country’s purchase of prohibited goods more difficult to track.
The report, compiled by a panel of eight UN experts, is part of an annual accounting of North Korea’s compliance with layers of UN sanctions imposed in response to Pyongyang’s banned nuclear and missile programs. The panel reports to the UN Security Council.
“From the incidents analyzed in the period under review, the panel has found that (North Korea) makes increasing use of multiple and tiered circumvention techniques,” a summary of the 127-page report said.
It said North Korean embassies in Cuba and Singapore were suspected of organizing an illegal shipment of fighter jets and missile parts that were seized on a North Korean container ship in Panama last July.
