Japan toughens ship insurance rules, one step short of Norht Korea sanctions
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-01 14:00

Most North Korean ships have been effectively barred from entering Japanese ports as tougher insurance laws came into force in a move seen as one step short of economic sanctions against the country over its abductions of Japanese.

The measure will prevent more than 80 percent of North Korean ships from using Japanese ports for now as they are not insured, cutting off vital revenue in seafood for cash-strapped Pyongyang.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters late Monday that the rule change was "not targeted at any specific country" and stuck to his cautious stance of "dialogue and pressure" toward the North amid mounting public calls for full-fledged sanctions.

With its eye on North Korea, the Japanese parliament amended a maritime law last year to require all foreign vessels of 100 tonnes or more to be insured for liabilities over oil pollution or clearing wrecks.

Dubbed "unannounced" sanctions by some media, the legal amendment came after a series of wrecks and leaks involving uninsured North Korean vessels.

In 2002, a North Korean freighter ran aground off the Pacific port of Hitachi, north of Tokyo. The national and local governments had to pay some 600 billion yen (5.7 billion dollars) to remove the hulk and clean up oil leakage.

Only 2.5 percent of North Korean ships, which docked in Japan, were insured in 2003, compared with 72.8 percent for all foreign ships, according to transport ministry data.

North Korea, which fired a missile over Japan in 1998, has repeatedly warned that Japanese economic sanctions would mean a "declaration of war" and be answered with "decisive" retaliation.

Pyongyang accuses Japan of causing the breakdown in six-nation talks on ending its nuclear program by its insistence that the country is still holding Japanese people it kidnapped up to the 1980s to train its spies.

Japan has so far given docking permission to all 16 North Korean ships which applied as they had the proper insurance. But the number is minimal as some 100 North Korean ships made 1,070 port calls in Japan last year.

Many of the ships hauled clams, crabs and other seafood which are a major revenue maker for impoverished Pyongyang. Seafood accounts for nearly half of Japan's imports from the North.

The Man Gyong Bong-92, the main passenger ferry between the two countries, did not come as scheduled last month and is reported to be in the process of applying for insurance policy.

It is often used by ethnic Koreans living in Japan to carry cash, electronics and other items sorely needed in the isolated state.

A recent Japanese ruling party study said economic sanctions against North Korea would cost Pyongyang 1.2 billion dollars a year, making its economy contract by seven percent.

Tokyo has already suspended food aid after Pyongyang handed Japan last November ashes and other evidence to prove the deaths of eight Japanese kidnap victims. DNA tests showed that the ashes belonged to wrong people.

North Korea released five kidnap victims in 2002 in exchange for Japanese aid but insists that others are dead. But Japan believes that the eight are kept under wraps because they know North Korea's secrets.

North Korea had supplied 40 percent of short-neck clams and 25 percent of snow crabs -- another popular delicacy -- consumed in Japan.

After touring the port of Shimonoseki in western Japan, LDP deputy Ichita Yamamoto said Monday that most of short-neck clams there were from North Korea. "But I found that they were mostly brought in by Chinese ships."

But economic measures are seen as having less punch at a time when Japan-North Korea trade has been shrinking. It totaled 27.3 billion yen (260 million dollars) last year, down 11.5 percent from 2003 and down 78.3 percent from its peak in the year 1980.

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