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The New York Times reported Sunday that the U.S. allowed Ethiopia to purchase weapons from North Korea in a secret shipment last January. The arms deal appears to violate sanctions imposed on North Korea by the U.N. Security Council last October, the article said.
The U.S. received evidence of a cargo of weapons leaving North Korea on an Ethiopian ship but allowed the shipment to go through after an internal debate, the article said. Ethiopia is in the midst of a military offensive against Islamic militias inside Somalia, a campaign that aids the American policy of combating religious extremists in the Horn of Africa.
The full details of the arms shipment are not known, but a report from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said that the ship was carrying Soviet-era tank parts and military equipment.
That the U.S. allowed an ally to deal with North Korea "is an example of the compromises that result from the clash of two foreign policy absolutes: the Bush administration’s commitment to fighting Islamic radicalism and its effort to starve the North Korean government of money it could use to build up its nuclear weapons program," the article said.
According to the report, the U.S. has pressed Ethiopia to stop buying weapons from North Korea and Ethiopia has promised to find another country to do business with.
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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