NEW YORK - Washington allowed Ethiopia to secretly buy weapons from North Korea in an apparent breach of UN sanctions aimed at punishing Pyongyang for its atomic test, the New York Times reported on Saturday. The purchase went through in January — three months after the UN text was adopted — as Ethiopia was supporting Somali government troops in a battle against Islamist militias, the paper said, quoting unnamed senior US officials.The officials said they learned that Ethiopia was planning to get a shipment of “military cargo from North Korea” after the UN resolution was passed in mid-October. One of the officials was quoted as saying the Ethiopian government appealed to the administration of US President George W. Bush by saying: “Look, we know we need to transition to different customers, but we just can’t do that overnight.”
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The sanctions called for the cease of sale to and transfer from North Korea of battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles or missile systems. The United States had led the calls for a strong international response to PyongyangÂ’s nuclear test in October 2006 and welcomed the unanimous adoption of the resolution.
The US State Department declined to comment on the Times report.