Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli tweeted a photo showing a green tube that appears to be a horizontal antenna for the SNR-75 ‘Fan Song’ radar, which is used to guide missiles fired by the SA-2 air-defense system found in former Warsaw Pact and Soviet-allied nations, said Neil Ashdown, an analyst for IHS Jane’s Intelligence.
‘It is possible that this could be being sent to North Korea to update its high-altitude air-defense capabilities,’ Mr Ashdown said.
North Korea has not commented on the seizure, during which 35 North Koreans were arrested after resisting police efforts to intercept the ship in Panamanian waters last week, according to Martinelli. He said the captain had a heart attack and also tried to commit suicide.
The U.N. Security Council has imposed four rounds of increasingly tougher sanctions against North Korea since its first nuclear test on October 9, 2006.
Under current sanctions, all U.N. member states are prohibited from directly or indirectly supplying, selling or transferring all arms, missiles or missile systems and the equipment and technology to make them to North Korea, with the exception of small arms and light weapons.
The most recent resolution, approved in March after Pyongyang’s latest nuclear test, authorizes all countries to inspect cargo in or transiting through their territory that originated in North Korea, or is destined to North Korea if a state has credible information the cargo could violate Security Council resolutions.
‘Panama obviously has an important responsibility to ensure that the Panama Canal is utilized for safe and legal commerce,’ said Acting U.S. Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who is the current Security Council president.
‘Shipments of arms or related material to or from Korea would violate Security Council resolutions, three of them as a matter of fact’.
Panamanian authorities believed the ship was returning from Havana on its way to North Korea, Panamanian Public Security Minister Jose Raul Mulino told The Associated Press.
Based on unspecified intelligence, authorities suspected it could be carrying contraband and tried to communicate with the crew, who didn’t respond. Martinelli said Panama originally suspected drugs could be aboard.
‘Panama being a neutral country, a country in peace, that doesn’t like war, we feel very worried about this military material,’ Martinelli said.