North Korea seeks stronger ties with Iran to fight U.S.

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North Korea seeks stronger ties with Iran to fight U.S.

(RTTNews) - North Korea sought strengthening of relations with Iran "in the struggle for independence against imperialism and the United States."

This was stated by Yang Hyong Sop, vice-president of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of North Korea, at a reception Thursday for visiting Iranian vice President Mohammad Javad Haji Ali Akbari.

Washington has branded Iran as a state sponsoring terrorism, while North Korea was removed from the U.S. blacklist only recently.

Speaking in Pyongyang, Akbari said friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries are developing steadily in the political, economic, cultural and other fields.

He is in the Communist country as part of a youth cultural exchange program.

North Korea's official KCNA news agency said national youth organizations of both the countries signed a memorandum of understanding on friendly exchange and cooperation Friday.

www.nasdaq.com

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Nov 23, 2008 13:18 | Updated Nov 24, 2008 9:05
Newsweek: US foiled missile shipment to Iran

By JPOST.COM STAFF

A few weeks before dropping North Korea from the United States' list of countries that sponsor terrorism, the Bush administration thwarted a shipment of missile parts, possibly including gyroscopes for guidance systems, from the far eastern country to Iran, the weekly news magazine Newsweek reported Sunday, quoting US officials.

Newly released pictures of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Did he try to send Iran missile parts?

Photo: AP
Slideshow: Pictures of the week

On August 4, an aircraft operated by Pyongyang's state-controlled airline was given permission by India to fly from Burma to Teheran, traversing Indian airspace.

On August 7, The Indian Express newspaper reported that the office of India's prime minister "hurriedly" asked authorities to withdraw the clearance.

The US officials said that clearance was annulled following a request from Washington.

The US then removed North Korea from its state sponsor of terror status in October, after Pyongyang agreed to halt its nuclear program. However, what seemed a brisk start began to stutter as Japanese and South Korean officials publicly proclaimed that North Korea had stopped the process of decommissioning its reactor, and was not standing up to other sides of its agreement with the US.

US officials believe that when Kim Jong Il dies, North Korea will be ruled by bureaucrats, military commanders and Communist Party functionaries with links to Kim's family.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satelli...=1226404808157

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Jan 7, 2009
North Korea sees an opening
By Donald Kirk

WASHINGTON - As the United States focuses on the new Israeli war, and president-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office, North Korea is revving up its rhetoric against South Korea and ailing leader Kim Jong-il has visited military units in a worrying display of intimidation.

For the first time in 14 years, Kim chose to visit a military unit on New Year's Day, as noted by South Korea's Unification Ministry, rather than go to a factory or pay homage at the memorial bearing his father Kim Il-sung's remains. The emphasis on the North's military-first policy was accompanied by a particularly ferocious attack on the South's conservative government as "the fascist rule of the sycophantic and treacherous conservative authorities".

While the US and South Korea negotiate a timetable for withdrawal of the US military headquarters in Seoul to a base south of the capital, the US fixation on the Middle East has provided an opening for North Korea to exploit. The North's aim, as seen in Pyongyang's avoidance of anti-American rhetoric, is to drive a wedge between the US and South Korea and ultimately achieve its goal of destroying the alliance.

In that context, the Israeli invasion of Gaza carries grave implications for Korea that are easy to overlook in the frenzy of "breaking news" from the region and the worldwide response to the Israeli pummeling of Palestinians.

It would be absurd to try to compare conflict in the Middle East to the Korean War or the confrontation of forces that has prevailed on the Korean Peninsula since the signing of the armistice in July 1953. They are totally different, but they do have one common denominator - the military and diplomatic role of the United States.

Like it or not, the United States is completely committed to Israel to an extent that far exceeds American bonds with South Korea.

The planes, the tanks and virtually all the modern weaponry deployed by Israeli forces are either American-made or purchased with American funds. Israel is by far the largest recipient of American aid. The American passion for Israel reflects the belief in the right of Jews to their own homeland after the killing of more than 6 million in Nazi Germany's concentration camps as well as complicated US interests in the Middle East and the power of American Jews, whose political and economic influence far outweighs their numbers.

Now the question is whether the United States, while supporting Israel to the hilt and waging wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will have the means or the stomach for a potentially far worse conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

Would American leaders, and the American people, ever muster the same passion for the defense of South Korea as they do for Israel? For that matter, would the US stand up in a second Korean War as it did in 1950 when a severely depleted American military establishment built up quickly enough to drive out the North Korean invaders and then, after the Chinese entered the war and drove the Americans and South Koreans from the North, finally drove the Chinese from the South.

The United States today has about 28,500 troops in South Korea, far more than the 500 or so advisers in the country when the Korean War broke out in June 1950, and South Korean forces are vastly better equipped now than they were in June 1950. The bottom line, though, is does the US have the will for a Far Eastern war while involved in unpopular flare-ups from Israel to Pakistan?

In the outburst of publicity over the Middle East, few if any Americans are aware that war on the Korean Peninsula would be far costlier, and bloodier, than anything seen so far in the Middle East, including Iraq. A second Korean war, moreover, would carry the risk of a regional holocaust, with the Chinese and Russians rushing to the aid of North Korea and Japan, the one-time colonial occupier, joining the fray against historical foes. That scenario, far-fetched though it may seem, lingers in the minds of those with memories of the horrors that engulfed the peninsula from mid-1950 to mid-1953.

The United States, as it enters the Obama administration, is not capable of fighting on two broadly separated fronts without reverting to the draft of young men, and possibly women, which was abandoned after popular revulsion over the Vietnam war. If Americans are not nearly so hostile to their military establishment today as they were at the height of the Vietnam War, the reason is the absence of fear among young people of having to join the army whether they like it or not.

Americans, moreover, are far more concerned about problems on their own home front than anywhere else. No American units are going to accompany the Israelis in Gaza. Israeli forces, fully equipped with American weaponry, have no problem roaring over Palestinians, whose rockets attacks are like bee stings in comparison with the shelling, strafing and bombing of Israeli tanks. Hamas, which is responsible for instigating attacks against Israel, is basically a terrorist organization that does not have the support of the majority of Palestinians, including probably the 1.5 million living in Gaza.

The North Koreans would be a far more formidable foe. Quite aside from their nuclear warheads, which they may not know how to deploy, they have a great many artillery pieces and infantry weapons, a product that the North's decrepit industrial base still manages to manufacture.

The North also has biological and chemical weapons, a navy that includes submarines and lesser submersibles, and an air force whose old-model MiGs can still fly. On paper, South Korea is far stronger in all but one important aspect. North Korea has twice as many men under arms, well over 1 million compared to 600,000 in the South, and the North Korean troops by and large have served far longer, under more severe circumstances, than those in the South.

The real imponderable, though, is whether the US, in the crunch, would rush to defend the South with all the arms it needed, as well as an infusion of troops, if North Korea were to take advantage of America's relationship with Israel and the Middle East to stage a surprise attack. Would Obama as president respond as stubbornly as did Harry Truman, the American president when the Korean war broke out?

And how would the crucial American Jewish community feel about a war in which Jewish interests were not at stake as in Israel? The views of Jewish neo-conservatives and liberals on Israel may vary widely, but they all support the Jewish state's right to exist. What about if the Republic of Korea were imperiled? For Americans, modern Korea is just about as easy to forget, in time of crisis elsewhere, as the "forgotten" Korean war.

The best hope is that all such questions will remain abstract and theoretical, raised for discussion but never put to the test. Still, headlines, news alerts and bulletins on the war for Gaza force everyone to ask, Can it happen here - and what if it does?

Journalist Donald Kirk has been covering Korea - and the confrontation of forces in Northeast Asia - for more than 30 years.

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‘Iran paid N.K. for arms via Bank Mellat Seoul branch’

2011-01-17 19:52

• Voiceware

A U.S. diplomatic cable provided to WikiLeaks suggested that North Korea likely received payment for weapons sales to Iran via a Seoul-based branch of an Iranian bank blacklisted for aiding Iran’s nuclear weapons programs.

According to the cable dated March 24, 2008, which was released on Sunday by the Norwegian daily Aftenposten, “Hong Kong Electronics,” an Iranian-based enterprise, wired a total of $2.5 million to Bank Mellat’s Seoul branch from its account in a Iranian bank, called Parsian.

Hong Kong Electronics is known to be a fictitious firm of Tanchon Commercial Bank, which is in charge of financial support for the communist state’s overseas arms exports. As a result, observers here believe the $2.5 million payment to have been made after the North sold weapons to the Middle East state.

The money was wired in euros in three occasions in November 2007, and $1.5 million of it was remitted to bank accounts in China and Russia, according to the cable.

Tanchon Commercial Bank is also known to have engaged in financial transactions to do with North Korea’s selling of ballistic missiles to Iran. Along with the bank, Hong Kong Electronics is on a list of firms sanctioned by the U.N. Security Council, Washington and Seoul.

Regarding Iran’s transactions through Bank Mellat’s Seoul branch, the U.S. State Department demanded in August 2007 that the Seoul government conduct a financial investigation into the branch’s transactions associate, according to the cable.

The Seoul government launched inquiries into the branch as well as Iran’s Bank Sepah and sent a 46-page report on the result of the inquiries to the U.S. government. Washington, however, did not find any suspicious dealings regarding nuclear programs and other weapons in the report, the cable said.

In December of the same year, Seoul notified to the U.S. that it was continuing its investigation into the branch of the Iranian bank, which caused other South Korean banks to cut down on their transactions with Bank Mellat, the cable said.

The cable also showed that in 2008 the State Department, which called the Seoul branch “a key node” for facilitating the spread of nuclear programs and other weapons, showed gratitude to the Seoul government for cooperation.

By Song Sang-ho (sshluck@heraldm.com)

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Iran, North Korea Secretly Developing New Long-Range Rocket Booster for ICBMs

Iranian missile group delegation visited Pyongyang as Geneva nuclear talks were underway

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani meets with top North Korean official Kim Yong Nam / AP

BY: Bill Gertz
November 26, 2013 5:00 am
Iranian missile technicians secretly visited North Korea as part of joint development of a new rocket booster for long-range missiles or space launchers at the same time nuclear talks took place in Geneva, according to U.S. officials.

Several groups of technicians from the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group (SHIG), a unit in charge of building Iran’s liquid-fueled missiles, traveled to Pyongyang during the past several months, including as recently as late October, to work on the new, 80-ton rocket booster being developed by the North Koreans, according to officials familiar with intelligence reports.

The booster is believed by U.S. intelligence agencies to be intended for a new long-range missile or space launch vehicle that could be used to carry nuclear warheads, and could be exported to Iran in the future.

Recent U.S. intelligence assessments have said that both North Korea and Iran are expected to have missiles capable of hitting the United States with a nuclear warhead in the next two years.

The Iranian cooperation reveals that the nuclear framework agreement concluded Sunday in Geneva has not slowed Tehran’s drive for missiles that can deliver a nuclear warhead to intercontinental range.

One official described the new booster as a thruster for a “super ICBM” or a heavy-lift space launcher.

“It is completely new from what they have done so far,” the official said.

The official said the missile cooperation was disseminated in multiple intelligence reports over the past several months. The official suggested the reports were suppressed within the government by the Obama administration to avoid upsetting the talks in Geneva.

“Why does the administration want so much to negotiate a nuclear agreement with Iran if they know full well that that country is building nuclear delivery vehicles?” the official asked.

State Department and White House National Security Council spokeswomen had no immediate comment. A Defense Intelligence Agency spokeswoman declined to comment.

Additional intelligence reports based on satellite imagery reveal that North Korea is developing a larger missile or space launcher than its previously known rockets. The indications include a launch tower at one facility that is substantially taller than other known towers spotted at North Korean launch sites.

The blog 38 North, part of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, disclosed last month that satellite photos showed a expansion at a North Korean launch site for a larger rocket.

Both North Korea and Iran are believed to be hiding their long-range missile programs, part of space-launcher development, as a way to avoid international sanctions.

Meanwhile, the State Department’s special envoy for North Korean nuclear affairs Glyn Davies said in Tokyo on Monday that Pyongyang could be hit with additional sanctions if the regime fails to show a willingness to give up its arms program.

“If we do not see signs of North Korean sincerity, if they do not act, demonstrate that they understand they must fulfill their obligations, give up their nuclear weapons, then there’s more pressure that will be brought to bear on them,” Davies told reporters, Kyodo reported.

The reports of a new North Korean rocket booster coincide with the emergence of a key official within the North Korean regime last September. The official, Pak To Chun, surfaced in public after a mysterious four-month absence from the public eye. Pak is a member of the powerful National Defense Commission and a key official in charge of North Korea’s long-range missile and space launcher programs.

North Korea and Iran announced plans to develop closer relations, including defense, science and technology ties, in September 2012 when Kim Yong Nam, a senior North Korean official, visited Tehran. Kim met with Iran’s supreme leader Sayed Ali Khameni. Both sides said at the time that they would cooperate against the United States.

The Iranian company SHIG, part of the Aerospace Industries Organization of Iran, has developed all of Iran’s liquid-fueled missiles, including the Shahab series that is based on North Korea’s Nodong medium-range missiles. The company was sanctioned by the United Nations for its role in illicit missile transfers in 2006. The U.S. government has also sanctioned it for illicit missile exports.

SHIG experts were known to have visited North Korea previously in 2009 to take part in a missile test launch that year of a Taepodong-2 (TD-2) missile.
A report published in July by the National Air and Space Intelligence Center stated North Korea is continuing to build TD-2 long-range missiles and space launchers.

“Continued efforts to develop the TD-2 and the newly unveiled [mobile] ICBM show the determination of North Korea to achieve long-range ballistic missile and space launch capabilities,” the report said.

The report also said Iran has carried out several launches of a two-stage Safir space launch vehicle and in 2010 unveiled a new larger launcher called the Simorgh.

“Iran will likely continue to pursue longer range ballistic missiles and more capable [space-launch vehicle], which could lead to the development of an ICBM system,” the report said, noting that “Iran could develop and test an ICBM capable of reaching the United States by 2015.”

Disclosure of the Iran-North Korean missile cooperation could upset China’s efforts to restart the stalled six-party talks on North Korea’s nuclear program.
The United States and South Korea are opposing a resumption of the nuclear talks until North Korea demonstrates that it is willing to dismantle its nuclear facilities.

A State Department cable from 2009 made public by Wikileaks stated that North Korea’s Amroggang Development Bank worked with the Korea Mining Development Corporation (KOMID) in the past in selling missiles and technology to SHIG.

Another cable on Iran’s Ballistic Missile program from 2009 states that “Iran has the largest and most active missile program in the Middle East.”

“Iran has accelerated its work toward developing a domestic space program,” the report said.

The Safir space launcher “has demonstrated several capabilities necessary for longer-range ballistic missiles: staging, clustered engines in the second stage (although these were small), and gimbaled engines for control of the second stage, a more advanced technique than the jet vanes used in the first stage,” the report said.

“Iran currently appears focused on increasing the capability and range of its ballistic missiles,” the report said. “Although Iran is unlikely to deploy the Safir SLV as a ballistic missile, the Safir, and the development and test of the two-stage Sajjil [medium-range ballistic missile], has provided Iran with much of the technology and experience necessary to develop and produce longer-range ballistic missiles, including ICBMs.”

“Tehran could attempt to develop and test much of this technology under the guise of an SLV program.”