Saturday, January 27, 2007

North Korea helping Iran with nuclear testing?

North Korea is helping Iran to prepare an underground nuclear test similar to the one Pyongyang carried out last year. Under the terms of a new understanding between the two countries, the North Koreans have agreed to share all the data and information they received from their test last October with Teheran's nuclear scientists.

A senior European defense official told The Daily Telegraph that North Korea had invited a team of Iranian nuclear scientists to study the results of last October's underground test to assist Teheran's preparations to conduct its own — possibly by the end of this year.

There were unconfirmed reports at the time of the Korean firing that an Iranian team was present. Iranian military advisers regularly visit North Korea to participate in missile tests.
[Excerpt of an article by Con Coughlin, The Daily Telegraph]


North Korea [responded today by expressing] outrage at a British newspaper's report that Pyongyang was sharing its nuclear weapons technology with Iran, dismissing it as a "bid to mislead public opinion."

"Their assertion is nothing but a sheer lie and fabrication intended to tarnish the image of the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] by charging it with nuclear proliferation," a spokesman for North Korea's Foreign Ministry, quoted by the state-run KCNA news agency, said Saturday.
[CNN]

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