Eritrea has once again found itself on the wrong side of international norms as a UN report accused the East African country of violating an arms embargo by buying military communications equipment from North Korea.

This marks the third consecutive year that Eritrea has been named by the UN panel monitoring sanctions on North Korea, said Hugh Griffiths, coordinator of the panel.

In response, the United States moved to ban all equipment sales or interactions with Eritrea's navy, under nonproliferation legislation that targets Iran, Syria and North Korea.

Eritrea was one of seven African countries listed as arms-embargo violators for buying weapons, military material or receiving training from North Korea.

In Eritrea's case, the UN panel found that in July 2016 Eritrea imported 45 boxes of encrypted military radios and accessories, including GPS antennas, microphones and clone cables. The equipment was intercepted before reaching its destination.

The UN said the equipment was sold by Glocom, which is said to be a Malaysian front company selling North Korean goods in an attempt to avoid detection. A previous report found evidence that an Eritrean government department had received "military and technical support" from a North Korean company named Green Pine.

In capital Asmara, Eritrea's Ministry of Information denounced the new US sanctions as "inexplicable and unwarranted," and said they followed a pattern established years ago.

"The pattern is sadly the same," a ministry statement said. "Fallacious reports are first floated and illicit measures subsequently announced by the same architects who act as the plaintiff, prosecutor, and judge."

Eritrea was previously accused of aiding the Somali extremist group al-Shabaab in 2009. As a result, the U.N. ordered an arms embargo, travel restrictions and a freeze on assets of military and political leaders.

Another UN report five years later found no evidence that the Eritrean government continued to support al-Shabaab, but declined to lift sanctions.

"The Monitoring Group does not, however, rule out the possibility that Eritrea may be providing some assistance to elements within al-Shabaab without detection, but it is the overall assessment of the Monitoring Group that Eritrea is a marginal actor in Somalia," the UN group found.

The monitoring group's annual report last November said that because Eritrea received foreign support for a new military base and seaport, it violated the embargo. Eritrea has hosted security personnel from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as they conduct attacks as part of their ongoing campaign in Yemen.

- Bernama-NNN-Agencies