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U.S. to Confront, Not Board, North Korean Ships
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration will order the Navy to hail and request permission to inspect North Korean ships at sea suspected of carrying arms or nuclear technology, but will not board them by force, senior administration officials said Monday.

The new effort to intercept North Korean ships, and track them to their next port, where Washington will press for the inspections they refused at sea, is part of what the officials described as "vigorous enforcement" of the United Nations Security Council resolution approved Friday.

The planned American action stops just short of the forced inspections that North Korea has said that it would regard as an act of war. Still, the administration's plans, if fully executed, would amount to the most confrontational approach taken by the United States in dealing with North Korea in years, and carries a risk of escalating tensions at a time when North Korea has been carrying out missile and nuclear tests.

In discussing President Obama's strategy on Monday, administration officials said that the United States would report any ship that refused inspection to the Security Council. While the Navy and American intelligence agencies continued to track the ship, the administration would mount a vigorous diplomatic effort to insist that the inspections be carried out by any country that allowed the vessel into port.
That might be clever. A Nork ship can't sail to Syria without stopping at certain intervals for fuel, etc. Wherever they stop, the authorities in that country have the right to inspect the ship. Takes the heat off us and at the very least makes the Norks wary of where their ships go.
The officials said that they believed that China, once a close cold war ally, would also enforce the new sanctions, which also require countries to refuse to refuel or resupply ships suspected of carrying out arms and nuclear technology. "China will implement the resolution earnestly," said Qin Gang, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said.
Nonsense, of course they won't. North Korea is their lap dog.

Posted by: Steve White 2009-06-17
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=272162