Seoul mulls North ship inspection plan

South Korea’s coast guard said it is drawing up guidelines on how to inspect North Korean ships suspected of carrying banned items – a move expected to enrage Pyongyang, which has warned it would consider such inspections a declaration of war.

The move came as a senior US diplomat met with South Korea’s nuclear envoy about implementing UN sanctions punishing Pyongyang for its latest nuclear test and getting the communist regime to return to talks on its nuclear programme.

Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asia and Pacific affairs, also held talks in Japan and goes today to Thailand for Asia’s main security conference, where North Korea should be a key topic.

“We need to make sure that we’re extremely closely coordinated in a very critical period ahead,” Mr Campbell said at the start of a meeting with Seoul’s nuclear envoy, Wi Sung-lac.

Mr Wi said the two allies should work closely together to implement the UN sanctions, which include ship searches, and resume stalled nuclear talks.

North Korea quit the talks aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions in April in anger over a UN rebuke after it launched a long-range rocket. It also conducted a nuclear test in May and a series of banned ballistic missile tests early this month.

Mr Campbell said there should be consequences for North Korea’s provocations, but said the US and its partners would be prepared to offer attractive incentives if Pyongyang returned to the talks and took “serious and irreversible steps” to disarm.

The stalled talks involved China, Japan, the two Koreas, Russia and the US.

Pyongyang’s number two leader, Kim Yong Nam, said last week that the talks are permanently over because the US and its allies do not respect North Korea’s sovereignty.

South Korea’s move to draw up North Korean ship inspection guidelines is in line with latest UN sanctions that clamp down on North Korea’s alleged trading of banned arms and weapons-related material.

A coast guard official said the guidelines would call for inspecting North Korean ships travelling in South Korean waters if there is concrete evidence they carry banned items. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity citing the issue’s sensitivity, did not give details.

A North Korea ship suspected of heading toward Burma with a cargo of banned items turned back home earlier this month after surveillance by the US Navy as part of the UN resolution.

The security conference opening on Wednesday in Thailand brings together foreign ministers and senior diplomats from 27 countries, including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. North Korea is sending a lower-level official, instead of the foreign minister, to the meeting.