Voice of America reported on Friday that North Korea deleted 13 of its several dozen known submarines from a public list maintained by the International Maritime Agency (IMO) just a day after registering them.
On the same day, VOA noted that the registration details of over 180 North Korean naval vessels listed in the IMO’s Global Integrated Shipping Information System (GISIS) were no longer searchable. Searching for their assigned IMO unique identification numbers returns a message stating, “No such vessel found.”
It appears that only the naval vessels have been removed from the records, while general North Korean merchant ships remain listed.
On Tuesday, North Korea registered 13 vessels with the IMO, including 11 Sang-O II-class submarines, the “8.24 Yongung” and the Hero Kim Kun Ok, under the “Korea North Govt Naval Force.” However, just a day after this registration was reported, North Korea suddenly removed the information on Wednesday. This marked the first instance of North Korea registering submarines with the IMO.
It seems likely that North Korean authorities were responsible for mass-deleting naval vessel data from the GISIS records. On Thursday, an IMO spokesperson told VOA that “Member states can request updates to their relevant data.”
Experts have cited “security concerns” for North Korea’s recent puzzling move regarding IMO registrations.
Bruce Bennett, a military expert and senior international/defense researcher at RAND, speculated that deleting North Korean naval vessel registrations appears to respond to media reports. He suggested that a higher authority within the state likely ordered the removal to avoid drawing attention and obscuring North Korea’s naval capabilities.