Thursday, March 28, 2024
02:41 PM (GMT +5)

Go Back   CSS Forums > General > News & Articles

News & Articles Here you can share News and Articles that you consider important for the exam

Reply Share Thread: Submit Thread to Facebook Facebook     Submit Thread to Twitter Twitter     Submit Thread to Google+ Google+    
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Search this Thread
  #1  
Old Sunday, November 29, 2015
Member
 
Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Karachi and Hyderabad
Posts: 95
Thanks: 48
Thanked 13 Times in 12 Posts
aleeamjad is on a distinguished road
Default Forget China -- N. Korea Markets Missiles Despite Iran Nuclear Deal

How inclined are the North Koreans to listen to the Chinese?
While Iran, the North’s partner on missile and nuclear deals, has agreed to stay away from enriching uranium for nuclear weapons, North Korea leader Kim Jong-un remains impervious to pleas to follow that example. As the Iran nuclear deal takes effect, South Korean physicist Chang Soon-heung believes South Korea and the U.S. “must cooperate with China” in the quest for a “creative solution” to the impasse with the North.
From his vantage as president of Handong Global University in the fast-growing city of Pohang on Korea’s east coast, Chang harks back to the 1994 Geneva framework under which North Korea was promised two light-water nuclear energy reactors produced in South Korea in return for giving up its nuclear weapons program.
A member in that period of the international safety group of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Chang believes the Geneva agreement, had the U.S. and North Korea abided by its terms and South Korea’s Korea Electric Power Corporation, KEPCO, installed the reactors, would have worked.
The Iran nuclear deal, Chang believes, adds urgency to the need for a new deal with North Korea. It’s time, he says, for a fresh understanding despite the danger of North Korea conducting another nuclear test. ”I would like to ask the U.S. and our government to create a solution,” he says.
Chances of North Korea giving up its proud position as one of the world’s nine nuclear powers appear virtually nil, however, as long as the North works closely with Iran on missiles and nuclear technology. James Lewis, director of strategic technologies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, says Iran and North Korea scaled down their activities for several months while Iran negotiated the nuclear deal with the U.S. but are back to business as usual. “We assume they are coordinating on such activities,” he says.
North Korean soldiers parade through Kim Il Sung Square with their missiles and rockets during a mass military parade, on Oct. 10, 2015, in Pyongyang (AP Photo/Wong Maye-E)
Bruce Bechtol, a former US marine intelligence analyst and author of numerous studies on North Korea’s leadership and armed forces, predicts North Korean scientists and engineers sooner or later “are likely to launch their latest version of the Taepodong” — the long-range missile that’s capable of reaching the U.S. The North, he says, “may follow up with an underground nuclear test” — fourth in a series that includes tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013.
Meanwhile, North Korea has repeatedly declared its “legitimate right” to fire long-range missiles in order to put a satellite into orbit, as it did nearly three years ago, but the real purpose clearly is to see how far and well the missile can travel. At the same time, North Korea over the past two years has repeatedly tested mid-and-short-range missiles.
Behind the North Korean launches is the desire not only to display North Korea’s military power in northeast Asia, as a counterpoint to U.S., South Korean and Japanese forces, but also to market its missiles mainly in the middle east as it’s done for years. North Korea counts on its prowess in missiles for earning sorely needed income while China, the source of virtually all the North’s oil and most of its food, goes through an economic downturn that impacts the North’s dilapidated economy. “North Korea has thousands of missiles in warehouses,” says Bechtol, “They’ve got munitions factories making more of them.”
Most of North Korea’s missiles for years have been going to buyers in the middle east, notably Iran and Syria but also Egpt, Yemen, Libya and other markets. Although slowed down by sanctions, sales of short-range Scuds and mid-range Rodongs have been an important source of foreign exchange for the financially strapped regime.
North Korean missiles, moreover, remain a constant threat as seen when Scuds fired into Saudi Arabia by rebels in Yemen were discovered to have been manufactured in the North. South Korean intelligence sources estimated that Saudi forces had shot down about eight of 20 Scuds fired by rebels into Saudi Arabia.
ScudB and ScudC missiles in the hands of Yemeni rebels were exported in the 1990s, but North Korea has been sending missiles elsewhere in the Middle East. “The headquarters of North Korea’s arms trade in the region” has been Cairo, according to a South Korean intelligence official quoted by Yonhap, the South Korean news agency. Although the trade has been slowed by sanctions and U.S. negotiations with Iran, it’s still going on.
“There is no other way for them to get hard currency,” says Kim Tae-woo, formerly with the Korea Institute of Defense Analyses and now a lecturer on security issues at universities in Korea. He believes North Korea ships certain component by plane via China while also using ships — and may also send some components and plans by diplomatic pouch via its embassies abroad. Iran remains North Korea’s biggest customer even though presumably it’s under surveillance by U.S. spy satellites.
For years, North Korea has exported missiles to Iran in exchange for nuclear technology despite barriers that have slowed but not stopped the trade. Iranian engineers and technicians have been present at all three of North Korea’s underground nuclear tests. Lately, says Bechtol, North Korea has been negotiating with Iran for the sale of a ship from which they recently tested a missile fired from beneath the surface of the water.
While Iran has been its biggest market, North Korea also has formed close relations with the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Hundreds of North Korean engineers, technicians and workers have been aiding in Syria’s weapons programs for the past 20 years. The North Korean-Syrian relationship came to light when Israeli planes in September 2007 bombed a nuclear plant that the North Koreans were constructing for the Assad regime.
“North Korea has built missile fabrication facilities for Scuds and Rodongs and provided the technology for Iran’s long-range Taepodong missile,” he says. North Korean engineers have also used their noted skills at tunnel-building to construct underground facilities in which Iran produces centrifuges needed for nuclear devices powered by enriched uranium.
North Koreans are as well known for their ability to build tunnels as they are for fabricating missiles. “They built the tunnels from Gaza into Israel for Hamas,” says Bechtol. “They also are sending multiple rocket launchers for Hamas” — a minor market in the trade that North Korea continues in the face of numerous barriers to stop it.

Donald Kirk (Forbes)
Reply With Quote
Reply

Tags
china, iran, north korea, nuclear

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
PPSC one Paper Preparation Material all in one Monk Past Papers 22 Friday, July 17, 2020 10:57 PM
Israel-united states: Differing perceptions on military strikes against iran analyzed Shooting Star Current Affairs 0 Sunday, March 11, 2012 03:25 PM
UN "Green Light" for a Pre-emptive US-Israel Attack on Iran? Call for Change News & Articles 0 Monday, June 14, 2010 08:00 PM
Nuclear proliferation atifch Current Affairs 0 Tuesday, October 24, 2006 07:18 AM
Detailed knowledge of the alleged military plans - Iran sardarzada11 Current Affairs 40 Friday, April 28, 2006 12:30 AM


CSS Forum on Facebook Follow CSS Forum on Twitter

Disclaimer: All messages made available as part of this discussion group (including any bulletin boards and chat rooms) and any opinions, advice, statements or other information contained in any messages posted or transmitted by any third party are the responsibility of the author of that message and not of CSSForum.com.pk (unless CSSForum.com.pk is specifically identified as the author of the message). The fact that a particular message is posted on or transmitted using this web site does not mean that CSSForum has endorsed that message in any way or verified the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message. We encourage visitors to the forum to report any objectionable message in site feedback. This forum is not monitored 24/7.

Sponsors: ArgusVision   vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.