• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

China bans dual-use exports to N Korea, says Ministry of Commerce

Iran Press TV

Tue Sep 24, 2013 8:17AM GMT

China has prohibited exports of technologies and goods to North Korea, which could be used to build nuclear and chemical weapons, in order to comply with the UN resolutions, officials say.

In February 2013, North Korea conducted its third underground nuclear test in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. The move sparked international condemnation and a tougher round of UN sanctions, supported by several countries, as well as China, Pyongyang's major trading ally.

China's Ministry of Commerce, under the UN embargo against North Korea, released a 236-page list of banned "dual-use" technologies and products on Monday, which could be used for both civilian and military purposes.

'(We) are prohibiting exports of the listed dual-use goods and technologies regarding weapons of mass destruction and their means of conveyance to North Korea according to China's Foreign Trade Law and in order to execute relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council,' the ministry said in a statement on its website.

According to the released document, the prohibition includes nuclear explosion devices, certain rocket systems, toxic gas monitoring and testing systems. Beijing has also banned the export of some biological agents, including the Ebola virus.

The Ministry of commerce also stated that the boycott came into effect as of the day it was announced that was September 23.

The relation between North Korea and China has soured since Pyongyang's nuclear test in February.

Beijing has repeatedly called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. It has hosted several meetings of the six-nation (the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South and North Korea) security forum aimed at persuading Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear weapons program.

This is while Pyongyang has time and again said that its nuclear weapons are in self-defence against Washington's possible military strike, which holds military drills with Seoul regularly, sending nuclear-powered warships and aircraft capable of carrying atomic weapons to South Korea.

MM/HN