UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — The United States is seeking support in the United Nations for a resolution to tighten international measures against Somali pirates, a US diplomat said Thursday.
Ambassador Rosemary DiCarlo, who is a member of the US team at the United Nations, said the new text would "extend the authorities" set out in an earlier resolution adopted in June.
The previous text called on nations possessing warships in the Gulf of Aden to help hunt down pirates with the agreement of the Somali government.
The new resolution would help "deal with the issue of jurisdiction and accountability," she said, adding Washington was urging states to join the 1988 convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts (SUA) at sea.
"We call on states to join the SUA Convention, which allows countries to establish jurisdiction for those who commit piracy," DiCarlo said.
Since several countries began stationing warships and patrol boats off the Somali coast, a number of pirates have been intercepted, but countries have been forced to release them within days with no legal power to hold them.
NATO sent four ships to the region at the end of October and the European Union is due to take over early next month to patrol the treacherous waters.
France, India, Russia, Spain, and South Korea have all sent boats to the area along with US ships to help secure traffic in the vital global shipping lanes.
Somali pirates holding a hijacked Saudi oil super-tanker Thursday demanded a 25 million dollar ransom after seizing the ship in just 16 minutes at the weekend in the Indian Ocean.
In a sign of the havoc being wreaked by pirates, one of the world's largest shipping companies, Danish group A.P. Moller-Maersk, ordered some vessels to avoid the Gulf of Aden. Other companies are weighing similar options.
The International Maritime Organization, a UN body, on Thursday urged the UN Security Council to step up its measures against piracy, warning of serious economic consequences if the situation went unchecked.
IMO chief Efthimios Mitropoulos told the council there had been more than 120 attacks on shipping this year, with some 35 ships captured by pirates and 600 sailors taken hostage.
Two sailors had been killed, he added.
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