Cabinet will decide navy deployment regarding Korean cargo, O'Connor says

QUEBEC (CP) - Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor says the federal cabinet as a whole will have to decide whether it wants the Canadian Navy intercepting illicit North Korean cargo. There has been no formal request from the United States so far for such a mission, he told reporters on Friday after speaking at the NATO Parliamentary Association meeting in Quebec City. But O'Connor qualified his remarks by saying he has been out of the office all week on a speaking tour to drum up support for the Afghanistan mission.

"What we'd have to look at is the size of the (deployment) and how to sustain it," he said.

"We have to do an assessment. We have not been formally approached."

The Globe and Mail reported Friday that U.S. and Canadian officials have discussed naval co-operation as a way to counter North Korea's nuclear program.

The Conservative government apparently agrees in principle with the project, but Ottawa has not announced the deployment of ships.

North Korea exploded an atomic warhead last month, raising fears the cash-starved regime might try to sell nuclear material to terrorist groups.

The UN Security Council has authorized the interception of ships to or from North Korea to look for material that can be used in nuclear weapons.

U.S. officials say Canada has more than a dozen modern frigates and other warships that could help track cargo vessels suspected of carrying illegal weapons.

State Department spokesman William Strassberger in Washington said Friday that assistant secretary of state Kristen Silverberg was in Ottawa last week talking with Canadian officials about UN-related matters and the North Korea resolution did come up briefly.

"As far as proposing Canada take any specific measures, that didn't take place. The request wasn't made for that or for anything."

Last month, Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay scolded North Korean leaders and said Canada was prepared to stand with its allies to enforce United Nations sanctions against the isolated Communist state.

Ottawa has a "direct interest" in halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons material in the Pacific Rim, he said on Oct. 15.

But MacKay stopped short of committing the Canadian navy.

A defence analyst and former admiral has warned that while its ships are relatively new, the navy does not have enough of them to maintain separate deployments in different parts of the world.

Fred Crickard, a former rear admiral and author of several scholarly papers on naval strategy, said Canada would likely have to end its support of the U.S.-led war on terror in the Arabian Sea.

The biggest hurdle in taking on mission interdiction off Korea is the navy's lack of a supply ship. The only West Coast-based replenishment vessel is in dry dock undergoing an overhaul and is not scheduled to be back in the water until early next year.

Cmdr. Jeff Agnew, director of naval communications, said DND had not received any official request.

"Do we have the capacity to do that?" Agnew said from Ottawa. "Yes. Is our Canadian navy very skilled at doing interdiction and maritime interdiction operations? Absolutely.

"We have lots and lots of experience in that. But the question really resides with government to say do they want us to do that and what is it they want us to do.

"Do we have capacity? Yes we do depending on what the mission would be and we don't know what that mission would be at this point in time."

© The Canadian Press, 2006