India detains N Korean ship

NEW DELHI, Saturday (AFP) - India has detained a North Korean merchant ship after the vessel dropped anchor off the Andaman and Nicobar islands in the Bay of Bengal without permission, a coast guard official said Saturday.

The MV Musen was stopped “in Indian territorial waters on Thursday” after failing to respond to signals, an Indian Coast Guard officer, who did not wish to be named, told AFP by phone from Port Blair. Port Blair is the administrative headquarters of the archipelago.

The North Korean ship had set sail from Thailand on July 27 bound for Iraq and had halted en route in Singapore on July 30, he said. Indian army, navy and intelligence officials had begun “initial investigations,” including inspecting the ship which was said to be carrying 16,5000 tonnes of sugar, the official added, without elaborating.

Meanwhile, a senior Coast Guard Officer K.R. Nautiyal told the Times of India newspaper “several things were amiss” about the North Korean vessel. “She shouldn't have dropped anchor here in the first place. She did not respond to our signals and her logbook was found to be vague,” he said in the report published Saturday.

Efforts by a reconnaissance aircraft to contact the vessel did not elicit a response. the MV Musen tried to flee, Nautiyal said. “We opened fire twice in the air and only then did the Musen obey our orders,” he said.
“The ship with 39 people on board has been brought to Port Blair.” The detention of the North Korean ship comes days after a news report, quoting Myanmar defectors, said Pyongyang was helping fellow pariah state Myanmar build a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction plant for an atomic bomb.

Pyongyang is seen as an active proliferator of nuclear and missile technology with countries like Iran and Syria named by senior US officials as buyers of the know-how.

In April, North Korea rejected a 2007 deal under which Pyongyang would receive security guarantees and fuel in return for halting its nuclear weapons drive.

In May, Pyongyang staged a massive nuclear test, leading to a UN Security Council resolution calling for further inspections of air, sea and land shipments going to and from North Korea, and an expanded arms embargo.