Under Barack Obama, an Executive Order was signed in 2015, adding sanctions to entities in North Korea. One such sanction was on KOMID:
Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID): KOMID is North Korea’s primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. KOMID, a North Korean state-owned entity, was previously listed in the annex to E.O. 13382 on July 1, 2005 for its role in North Korea’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It was also sanctioned by the United Nations in April 2009. KOMID has offices in multiple countries around the world and facilitates weapons sales for the North Korean government.(Note this does specifically not mention chemical weapons but rather weapons of mass destruction)
Further there is Burma: the head of Burma’s Directorate of Defense Industries (DDI), Thein Htay, remains on the SDN list for arms deals with North Korea–presumably through KOMID which facilitates arms sales for North Korea. Several companies in Burma also are sanctioned for facilitating the import of materials to DDI from North Korea.
Additionally, KOMID is complicit with evidence here: Reportedly has assisted Syria in producing weapons, including reverse-engineered versions of the Kornet anti-tank guided missile originally supplied to Syria by Russia; in 2009, reportedly sought to procure equipment for transporter erector launchers (TELs) for Scud missiles intended for a ballistic missile project in Yemen; in 2008, reportedly sought, in cooperation with China-based New East International Trading Ltd., to transfer three Japanese-origin cylindrical grinding machines to Burma using false end-use statements; in 1999, reportedly supplied 12 missile engines to Iran. More here.
Now the United Nations has this additional report:
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country’s chemical weapons program were intercepted in the past six months, according to a confidential United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations.
The report by a panel of independent U.N. experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month and seen by Reuters on Monday, gave no details on when or where the interdictions occurred or what the shipments contained.
“The panel is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between Syria and the DPRK (North Korea),” the experts wrote in the 37-page report.
“Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria. Another Member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of a KOMID contract with Syria,” according to the report.
KOMID is the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. It was blacklisted by the Security Council in 2009 and described as Pyongyang’s key arms dealer and exporter of equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. In March 2016 the council also blacklisted two KOMID representatives in Syria.
“The consignees were Syrian entities designated by the European Union and the United States as front companies for Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a Syrian entity identified by the Panel as cooperating with KOMID in previous prohibited item transfers,” the U.N. experts wrote.
SSRC has overseen the country’s chemical weapons program since the 1970s.
The U.N. experts said activities between Syria and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian Scud missile programs and maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles air defense systems.
The North Korean and Syrian missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The experts said they were also investigating the use of the VX nerve agent in Malaysia to kill the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in February.
North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and four long-range missile launches.
Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. However, diplomats and weapons inspectors suspect Syria may have secretly maintained or developed a new chemical weapons capability.
During the country’s more than six-year long civil war the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said the banned nerve agent sarin has been used at least twice, while the use of chlorine as a weapon has been widespread. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons.
