{"id":36745,"date":"2019-03-22T10:22:42","date_gmt":"2019-03-22T10:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36745"},"modified":"2019-03-22T10:22:42","modified_gmt":"2019-03-22T10:22:42","slug":"us-imposes-sanctions-on-chinese-companies-for-helping-north-korea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=36745","title":{"rendered":"US imposes sanctions on Chinese companies for helping North Korea"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The United States<\/a>\u00a0imposed sanctions on Thursday on two Chinese shipping companies it says helped North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>evade sanctions over its nuclear weapons programme.<\/p>\n

In the first such step since a US-North\u00a0Korea<\/span>n summit collapsed last month, the Treasury Department also issued an updated advisory that listed 67 vessels that it said had engaged in illicit transfers of refined petroleum with North\u00a0Korea<\/span>n tankers or were believed to have exported North\u00a0Korea<\/span>n coal.<\/p>\n

The department identified the newly sanctioned firms as Dalian Haibo International Freight Co Ltd and Liaoning Danxing International Forwarding Co Ltd, which it said had helped North<\/a>\u00a0Korea<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>evade international sanctions.<\/p>\n

The move prohibits US dealings with the designated companies and freezes any assets they have in the country.<\/p>\n

Washington announced the measures three weeks after a second meeting between President Donald Trump<\/a> and North\u00a0Korea<\/span>n leader Kim Jong Un<\/a> broke down over conflicting demands by North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>for relief from sanctions and from the US side for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.<\/p>\n

Washington has led international efforts to press North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>through sanctions to give up its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.<\/p>\n

“The United States and our like-minded partners remain committed to achieving the final, fully verified denuclearisation of North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>and believe that the full implementation of North\u00a0Korea<\/span>-related UN Security Council resolutions is crucial to a successful outcome,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“Treasury will continue to enforce our sanctions, and we are making it explicitly clear that shipping companies employing deceptive tactics to mask illicit trade with North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>expose themselves to great risk,” he added.<\/p>\n

China and UN resolutions<\/h2>\n

The latest sanctions showed there was some “leakage” in North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>sanctions enforcement by China<\/a>, but Beijing was mostly abiding by the UN resolutions, a senior US official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity, according to the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

The official said that financial as well as shipping companies risked US action if they were found to be in violation of sanctions.<\/p>\n

The official insisted, however, that Thursday’s announcement was meant to maintain sanctions enforcement on North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>rather than intensify the pressure.<\/p>\n

While declining to say whether Washington was trying to send a post-summit message to Pyongyang, the official said Trump “has made clear that the door is wide open to continuing the dialogue with North\u00a0Korea<\/span>“.<\/p>\n

US-North\u00a0Korea<\/span>n engagement has appeared to be in limbo since the February 27-28 summit<\/a> in Hanoi, despite US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying on March 4 he was hopeful he could send a team to North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>“in the next couple of weeks”.<\/p>\n

Washington has said it aims to re-engage with Kim, but North\u00a0Korea\u00a0<\/span>has warned it is considering suspending talks and may rethink a freeze on missile and nuclear tests in place since 2017 unless Washington makes concessions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United States\u00a0imposed sanctions on Thursday on two Chinese shipping companies it says helped North\u00a0Korea\u00a0evade sanctions over its nuclear weapons programme. In the first such step since a US-North\u00a0Korean summit collapsed last month, the Treasury Department also issued an updated advisory that listed 67 vessels that it said had engaged in illicit transfers of refined…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36745\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}