By LYDIA POLGREEN
NEW DELHI — Indian authorities have detained a North Korean vessel and are searching it for radioactive material, the first time a ship has been seized and boarded under sanctions adopted by the United Nations Security Council in June.
The cargo ship, M V San, was spotted Friday, officials said, and detained under the authority of the United Nations resolution passed after North Korea tested a nuclear device in May.
The ship anchored without authorization in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, a territory of India in the Bay of Bengal, last week, according to the Indian military.
Indian officials said it was carrying more than 16,000 tons of sugar bound for the Middle East. But the ship’s proximity to Myanmar, a North Korean ally, and the fact that it had no apparent reason to be in the area raised suspicions.
The coast guard intercepted the ship after chasing it for six hours, and detained 39 North Korean crew members.
After two days of searching and of questioning the crew, India’s Navy and Coast Guard handed the ship over to police and intelligence services, having found no evidence of illegal cargo, according to the Press Trust of India.
Ashok Chand, a senior police officer in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, told Reuters that further tests were being conducted.
But it remains a mystery why the ship was in Indian waters at all.
India has watched warily for signs that North Korea is helping Myanmar build a nuclear reactor.
Adm. Sureesh Mehta of the Indian Navy told reporters in Delhi over the weekend that “the ship had no business to be there.”
The Security Council resolution, intended to punish North Korea for its nuclear test, forbids North Korea to traffic in a wide range of nuclear and conventional weaponry and calls on United Nations members to search North Korean ships, with the crews’ consent, if there are “reasonable grounds” to suspect that banned cargo is aboard.
The United States Navy tracked a North Korean freighter suspected of carrying banned cargo for about three weeks in June and July. As an American destroyer shadowed the ship, North Korea said it would consider its interception an act of war.
The ship, believed to be heading to Myanmar, finally turned back to its home port without incident.
Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, has long been suspected of buying North Korean arms as well as providing transit services for North Korean vessels engaged in illicit trade.
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/11/world/asia/11korea.html?_r=1&hp# 