Stunned at the reach of pirates operating off the Somalia coast, top US officials have called on the international community, including the UN Security Council, to set up a framework for prosecution of high-sea ship hijackers.
While taking note of Indian Navy's encounters with the pirates off the horn of Africa, Pentagon officials have said: "We're working in the Security Council to try to pass a resolution that could perhaps help deal with some of the limitations that currently exist in dealing with vessels on the high seas."
"One of the challenges that we have in piracy, clearly, is if you are intervening and you capture pirates, is there a path to prosecute them? And that's something I think the international community has got to answer for the long run," the US joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said.
However, the US officials said Washington has declined to give advise to Saudi Arabia on how it is to go about in the latest ongoing incident involving the hijacking for the first time of a super tanker.
Admiral Mullen said that he was "stunned" at the range of the pirates. "I'm stunned by the range of it... they've proven to be pretty capable, can get on and off lots of vessels. I mean, this is a 300,000-tonne, three times bigger than one of our aircraft carriers," Admiral Mullen said.
"... 450 miles away from the coast. That is the furthest, that's the longest distance I've seen for any of these incidents," he said explaining what he meant by "range".
Terming piracy as an international problem, American officials said US was not going solve this alone and in practical terms this is an "international problem".
