‘Ring of steel’: is seizure of Hong Kong ship sign of US moves for an oil blockade on North Korea?

A top US adviser and former lieutenant commander calls for a naval blockade as he warns the time for negotiations with Pyongyang has passed

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North Korea has been able to bypass sanctions with help from ‘bad actors’. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:33am, 6 Jan 2018Updated: 10:32am, 6 Jan 2018

The impounding of three foreign-flagged ships accused of secretly transferring oil to North Korean vessels in international waters, along with satellite images of Chinese tankers similarly contravening United Nations resolutions by trans-shipping fuel at sea, prove that existing sanctions are not working, believes Gregory Keeley.

And now the retired lieutenant commander, who served in the navies of both the United States and Australia and has since been senior adviser to both the vice-chairman of the US House Armed Service Committee and the chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, says that a far more forceful message needs to be sent to North Korea and the countries that continue to prop it up.

Keeley says that a “ring of steel” naval blockade needs to be introduced in the waters surrounding North Korea with the power to stop and search vessels operating under any flag to ensure that they are not carrying contraband bound for the regime of Kim Jong-un.

US Treasury images allegedly show a ship-to-ship transfer of oil to a North Korean vessel. Photo: Handout

“The recent interdictions of these ships just really points to the fact that UN sanctions are not working and are toothless,” Keeley tells This Week in Asia.

“A naval blockade is the only effective way to choke off the oil supply to the North, but we must also understand that if they have been illicitly getting their oil supplies in this way, then they are doing exactly the same with banned missile and nuclear technology, with components for their air force, with heavy equipment,” he says.