P-8A Poseidon surveillance aircraft will look for ship-to-ship transfers of goods prohibited under UN sanctions

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Australia will send a military plane to monitor North Korean vessels suspected of transferring prohibited goods in defiance of UN sanctions.

The surveillance aircraft is bound for a US facility in Japan alongside Canadian military planes to monitor Pyongyang’s vessels on the high seas.

“We do have a P-8A [Poseidon] surveillance aircraft that is going to be working in the region to monitor compliance with sanctions,” the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, said on Saturday.

“That is part of our collaboration with partners in that exercise to enforce those UN sanctions, and it’s very important that be done.”

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The defence minister, Marise Payne, said “the deployment supports the international campaign to address North Korea’s illicit trade and associated networks”.

The UN has long suspected that North Korea has used illicit ship-to-ship transfers to evade sanctions imposed on the country for its nuclear weapons program.



“What has been occurring is that sanctions have been evaded by transferring materials from ship to ship and so obviously being able to surveil – to add to the surveillance of the area – enables that to be identified, and then, of course, those who are party to that to be held responsible and brought to account,” Turnbull said.

The government’s announcement came a day after the leaders of North and South Korea pledged at an historic summit to work for the complete denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

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Payne welcomed North Korea’s promise to halt its ballistic missile and nuclear weapons testing, and on working towards denuclearisation.

“However, along with our partners, we will continue to apply maximum pressure on North Korea until it takes concrete and verifiable steps to denuclearise,” Payne said.

Senior US officials said in February the Trump administration and key allies in the region were preparing to expand interceptions of ships suspected of violating the sanctions on North Korea.

The strategy called for closer tracking of ships suspected of carrying banned weapons components and other prohibited cargo to and from North Korea.

Australia’s foreign minister, Julie Bishop, declined to say how long the P-8A Poseidon would remain in Japan, saying it was an operational matter.