North Korea, global arms bazaar

updated 4:39 p.m. ET Oct. 12, 2006

WASHINGTON - North Korea’s claimed test of a nuclear weapon is only the tip of what frightens the rest of the world. It’s all the more worrisome because the country has shown itself to be a virtual bazaar for spreading missiles, conventional weapons and nuclear technology around the globe.

According to U.S. officials and outside experts, Pyongyang has sold its military goods to at least 18 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East. That’s a good indication, officials warn, that North Korea might sell nuclear weapons if doing so would bring hard currency into the isolated, impoverished communist state.

North Korea’s catalog has included ballistic missiles and related components, conventional weapons such as mobile rocket launchers, and nuclear technology. It’s also possible, the officials say, that the unstable government in Pyongyang has sold components that could be part of biological or chemical munitions.

The officials and others interviewed this week about North Korea’s weapons trade spoke on the condition that they not be identified given the tense situation between the two countries.

On Thursday, the United States circulated a second draft resolution at the United Nations that condemns North Korea’s proclaimed nuclear test on Monday.

The resolution calls for a ban on all North Korean arms sales and travel by people involved in North Korea’s weapons program. It also requires countries to freeze all assets related to North Korea’s weapons and missile programs.

In admonishing North Korea’s purported nuclear test, President Bush this week accused Pyongyang of being “one of the world’s leading proliferators of missile technology, including transfers to Iran and Syria.”

North Korea’s customer list, going back to the mid-1980s, goes well beyond those two countries. U.S. officials, recent public assessments and outside experts report sales of missiles or related components to Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, Libya, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Pyongyang is also believed to have engaged in conventional arms deals for cruise missiles and other wares with most of those countries and 11 others: Angola, Burma, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, Vietnam, Zaire and Zimbabwe.

Sharing nuclear technology
North Korea is also believed to have shared its nuclear technology. Government officials have said publicly that A.Q. Khan — the Pakistani scientist who confessed in 2004 to running an illegal nuclear market — had close connections with North Korea, trading in equipment, facilitating international deals for components and swapping nuclear know-how.

Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., a retired Air Force officer who chairs the House intelligence subcommittee on technical intelligence, said the U.S. is not aware that North Korea has sold highly enriched uranium or plutonium to another nation, nor are authorities aware of any North Korean weapons sales to terrorist groups. Her assessment was confirmed by other government officials.

Wilson said she recently asked a government expert on North Korea what would stop North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il from selling weapons to terrorists. That expert’s response: “The North Koreans would sell their mother for enough money.”

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