North Korean Economy Watch

The Japanese and South Korean media have asserted that the DPRK is potentially preparing for a third nuclear test.  I have no idea if this is the case, but the North Koreans certainly want us to see them conducting activities at their test site in Kilju county.  Below I have placed some pictures of the area from both Google Earth and Digital Globe (taken  at different dates) of the test site:

Tunneling Activity:

Image data: Location: 41°16’34.70″N, 129° 5’16.99″E.  Dates: 2005-2-15, 2009-10-9, 2010-10-16. The top two images are from Google Earth. The image on the bottom is from DigitalGlobe.

New Vehicles:

Image Data: Location: 41°16’41.21″N, 129° 5’14.97″E.  Date: 2010-10-16.  Source: DigitalGlobe.

According to the Choson Ilbo:

A senior researcher at North Korea’s National Academy of Sciences has been arrested on espionage charges, it emerged on Tuesday.

A high-level North Korean source quoted rumors that Kim So-in, who is believed to have been in charge of the North’s nuclear and missile development, and his family were arrested by the State Security Department and taken to the notorious Yodok concentration camp in May.

A math prodigy who received his doctorate in his early 20s, Kim was said by the state media to have been behind the supposed launch of the North’s first satellite — an event widely believed to have been a long-range ballistic missile test.

The source said Kim is accused of assisting his father Kim Song-il, a researcher at the Yongbyon Nuclear Complex, in delivering top secret documents on nuclear development to a foreign agency.

The security department is nervous because many senior officials in various areas are suspected of attempting to earn dollars by selling confidential information, with top secret documents about the regime’s nuclear and missile development being leaked abroad, the source added.

Pak Kyong-chol, an official in the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, has also recently been sent to a labor camp for spying, and Kim Won-bom, the chief of the Wonsan office of the North Korean military bureau in charge of earning hard currency, has been arrested after US$1.5 million was found at his home.

And a senior official at the Kumgang bureau of the Majon Mine has been taken into custody for stashing away $100,000 after selling confidential information in conspiracy with military officers.

Senior officials are trying to sell confidential information because of economic difficulties since the botched currency reform late last year and the Chinese government’s recent crackdown on drug and counterfeit dollar transactions.

The security services have been ordered by regime heir Kim Jong-un to look out for “unusually rich” senior officials, the source added.

Read the full story here:
N.Korea’s Chief Nuke Scientist ‘Held for Spying’
Choson Ilbo
11/10/2010

According to Yonhap:

North Korea is believed to have produced some 40 kilograms of plutonium, the main ingredient of an atomic bomb, and to be miniaturizing nuclear weapons to improve their mobility, South Korea’s defense minister said Tuesday.

“We believe that North Korea owns 40kg of plutonium and continues attempts to miniaturize atomic weapons,” Defense Minister Kim Tae-young told lawmakers.

Kim’s assessment on North Korea’s plutonium stockpile is about 10kg less than what the United States estimates. The U.S. believes North Korea had produced about 50kg of the weapons material, which experts say would be enough for six to eight atomic bombs.

Kim said North Korea’s ballistic missiles could be used as “useful means” to carry nuclear bombs along with its fleet of bombers.

North Korea, which conducted two nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009, has shown no signs that it owns a working nuclear bomb.

Asked about the possibility of another nuclear test by North Korea, Kim replied, “There is a possibility, but no clear signs (of a third nuclear test) have been observed yet.”

South Korean and U.S. intelligence authorities have been keeping a close watch on the movements of vehicles and personnel at the North’s previous nuclear test site, Kim said.

North Korea has also made progress in its uranium enrichment program, which could give Pyongyang a second way to develop nuclear weapons in addition to the plutonium-based program, Kim said.

“I think it’s quite possible for North Korea to build nuclear weapons through the uranium enrichment program,” the defense minister said.

North Korea officially quit six-party talks, a forum aimed at ending its nuclear development in exchange for incentives, in April last year and conducted the second nuclear test a month later.

The six-party talks, which also involve South Korea, China, the United States, Japan and Russia, were last held two years ago. Chances of their resumption have been dim after Seoul blamed Pyongyang for sinking one of its warships in March.

North Korea has been beckoning other members recently, saying that it is willing to rejoin the forum. South Korea demands that the communist neighbor shows in action its willingness to denuclearize and apologize for the ship sinking.

Read the full story here:
N. Korea estimated to have 40 kilograms of plutonium: defense minister
Yonhap
11/2/2010

UPDATE (10/31/2010): According to CTV News:

The head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service quietly told a crowd of insiders he’s worried about North Korea and Iran surreptitiously trolling Canada for components to build an atomic bomb.

In a speech to academics and former intelligence officials, CSIS director Dick Fadden spoke of the spy service’s “active investigations” of people trying to procure nuclear materials.

The threat of weapons of mass destruction is an “area where we have to worry far more than we did not too long ago,” Fadden said.

“North Korea and Iran being people that we worry about the most.”

Fadden made the unusually candid comments in a previously unreported — and still partly secret — address to a late May gathering in Ottawa of the International Association for Intelligence Education.

The CSIS director also elaborated on his concerns about foreign interference in Canadian politics, as well as the threat of cyberterrorism. In addition, Fadden mused aloud on whether simply jailing homegrown terrorists is a real solution to the problem of radicalization. And he told the audience India has more influence in Afghanistan than Canada and its major coalition partners combined.

ORIGINAL POST: According to CTV:

Canada is adopting tough new sanctions against North Korea intended to demonstrate to Pyongyang that “its aggressive actions will not be tolerated.”

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon announced the new restrictions Thursday.

Under the new controlled engagement policy Canada’s relations with North Korea will be restricted to just a few areas, Cannon said.

Regional security concerns, human rights and humanitarian issues, inter-Korea relations and consular issues are now the only acceptable topics of contact between the two countries, Cannon said.

“All government to government co-operation or communication on topics not covered under the controlled engagement policy have now stopped,” Cannon said.

Cannon also announced new economic sanctions that will soon be put into place.

He said all imports from and exports to North Korea will be halted, apart from certain humanitarian exceptions.

There is also a ban on investment in North Korea by Canadians or people in Canada.

The sanctions also restrict the provision of financial services and the transfer of technology to North Korea.

All North Korean ships and aircraft are also banned from either landing in Canada or passing through its airspace, Cannon said.

“Canada takes a principled stand against those who recklessly commit acts of aggression in violation of international law,” Cannon said.

“The adoption of a controlled engagement policy and the imposition of special economic measures send a clear message to the North Korean government that its aggressive actions will not be tolerated.”

Canada has taken a tough stance with North Korea following the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean navy ship, earlier this year.

Forty-six sailors were killed when the ship went down. A multi-national investigation concluded the warship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo.

In the wake of the attack, Ottawa announced tougher diplomatic and trade restrictions, suspended high-level visits from officials and joined in the international condemnation of the attack.

Cannon on Thursday called on Pyongyang  to “improve its behaviour in complying with its obligations under international law.”

“These sanctions are not intended to punish the North Korean people. The sanctions we are announcing today are aimed directly at the North Korean government,” he said.

The level of trade between the DPRK and Canada is minimal, so these actions are more symbolic than anything else.

Though the two countries exercise diplomatic relations, there is no DPRK embassy in Canada and vice-versa.

Read the full story here:
Ottawa drafting ‘tough’ new sanctions for North Korea
CTV
10/28/2010

News from North Korea:

1. North says it will abide by 2005 denuking pact, N.Korea ‘Ready to Implement Six-Party Agreement’

2. N.Korea Seeks to Woo U.S. Through Private Experts

News from the US:

1. U.S. says won’t remove sanctions on DPRK for nuclear talks

And from South Korea:

1. North Korea’s ‘Peace Offensive’ Won’t Yield Dialogue, Hyun Says

2. Seoul urges North Korea to ‘play up’ to what it received

According to the Korea Times:

In Oct. 2006, a nuclear test was conducted in the remote mountainous area of North Hamgyeong Province, North Korea. This test did not come completely out of the blue. The North Korean government issued an official warning, thus becoming the first nation in history that gave prior notification about a coming nuclear weapons test. This openness might sound strange since we are talking about the world’s most secretive country, but it agrees well with the general character of the North Korean nuclear program. From its inception, the program was largely (but not exclusively) for show, it was aimed at impressing the outside world in order to manipulate it and get what the North Korean leaders wanted to get.

Even though North Korea joined the nuclear club only recently, its nuclear program has long history. It has remained the center of international attention since around 1990, but it began much earlier.

It was the mid-1950s when the first North Korean scientists arrived to work and study in the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in the Soviet city of Dubna, not far from Moscow. This institution was created by the USSR or former Soviet Union for joint international research in nuclear physics, and until the early 1990s some 250 North Korean scientists underwent training there. Soon afterwards, in 1959 the former Soviet Union and North Korea signed their first agreement on cooperation in nuclear research. A similar agreement was concluded with China as well (Pyongyang never puts all its eggs in one basket!).

In the 1960s, the North Korean version of Los Alamos began to take shape. This role was assigned to the city of Yongbyon, a rather small town, located some 90 kilometers to the north of Pyongyang. It is interesting that, for reasons of greater secrecy, the nuclear research facility was called the “Yongbyon furniture factory.” The major article of infrastructure of this “furniture factory” was not a saw-mill but rather a small Soviet-designed research reactor, completed in 1965. In the 1970s, the North Korean scientists independently modernized the reactor, increasing its output.

There are few doubts that from the very early stages Pyongyang leaders seriously considered the possible military applications of their nuclear research program. But it seems that the North Korean nuclear program made a decisive turn towards military applications in the 1970s. At that time, South Korea was working hard to develop nuclear weapons of its own. For the North, which has always had good intelligence about its arch-enemy, these intentions was hardly a secret, so it seems that around 1975 the North Korean political leaders decided not to lag behind and sped up their own nuclear program.

However, the major obstacle on the path to the acquisition of nuclear weapons was the position of the former Soviet Union. Moscow took non-proliferation seriously, and did everything to control Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions (incidentally, Washington treated Seoul’s nuclear plans in much the same manner). China also did not want a nuclear power across its border, so the usual North Korean strategy of playing Beijing against Moscow would not work in this case.

The Soviets made their continuing cooperation conditional on full-scale participation in the non-proliferation regime. In exchange for compliance, North Korea was promised technical assistance in building a nuclear power station of its own. Such a station was indeed a good option for a country which heavily depended on imported oil for power generation. Thus, Pyongyang bowed to the Soviet pressure complied and in 1985 signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty while secretly continuing with its nuclear weapons development efforts.

But soon the world changed. The communist bloc that both controlled Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions and provided it with aid, collapsed around 1990. The foreign aid almost disappeared, and Pyongyang had to survive somehow in an increasingly hostile world.

The North Korean leaders came to a conclusion that in their peculiar situation the Chinese style policy of reforms would be too risky. Indeed, in a divided country, with South doing so much better than the North, attempted reforms were likely to produce German-style collapse, not Chinese-style economic boom. So, in order to keep their power and privileges the North Korean leaders had to avoid any changes in the system. It was a rational choice for them, even though this policy choice condemned hundreds of thousands to death by starvation and completely ruined the already weak economy.

Since the country was stuck with a remarkably inefficient economic system, it could not feed itself, so it badly needed foreign aid ― a lot of it. But the ruling elite, the few hundred families around the Kim’s hereditary dictatorship, also knew that the aid should come without too many conditions attached and, above all, with as little monitoring as possible. They needed food, above all, to feed the privileged and politically significant regions and social groups, leaving others to their sorry fate. Since a riot in the capital would be deadly dangerous for the regime, Pyongyang should be given some food. The police and elite military units should eat well, too, since their loyalty was vital for the stability of the regime. At the same time, the survival of, say, miners at some distant mining town was never a high priority for Pyongyang decision makers.

However, getting large-scale aid without many conditions would be a difficult, almost impossible task had not Pyongyang had in its disposal the already well advanced military nuclear program. From around 1990, the program became the major diplomatic tool which was used with the greatest skill in order to insure the continuous influx of foreign aid.

This is not to say that the nuclear program had no military significance whatsoever ― Pyongyang had some reasons to be afraid of a foreign attack. Pyongyang leaders were correct when they say privately that Hussein would probably still be living in his palace, if Iraq indeed had nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, from the early 1990s the major rationale behind the program has been not military deterrence, but rather diplomatic blackmail.

From around 1990, Pyongyang began to arrange leaks about its nuclear weapons program, while officially denying its existence. It threatened to withdrew from the non-proliferation treaty, and its officials promised to transform Seoul into a “sea of fire” if their demands would not be met.

The strategy worked. In 1994 the strangely named “Agreed Framework” treaty was signed in Geneva. An international consortium where the U.S. and South Korea were major donors, agreed to provide North Korea with light water reactors for power generation (those reactors cannot be used for production of weapon-grade plutonium) and also promised regular shipments of fuel oil. In exchange, North Korea promised to freeze its military nuclear program and accept international inspections of its nuclear facilities. It is widely believed that the U.S. negotiators were ready to give generous concessions because at that time they assumed that the North Korean regime would collapse soon. They were wrong: to the surprise of foreign observers, Kim Jong-il managed to stay in control of his starving country.

The indirect impact of the nuclear program was great as well. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, North Korea got what it needed: a lot of foreign aid without too many monitors. One can doubt whether the amount of aid would have been so large, had North Korean not been seen as a potentially nuclear country.

The so-called “second nuclear crisis” erupted in 2002 when it was discovered that North Koreans were cheating: they were secretly pursuing a uranium enrichment program. This was used as a pretext to the discontinuation of aid. After few years of unsuccessful negotiations, the North Korean diplomats decided to raise the stakes, and in October 2006 the first nuclear test was conducted. It worked: in merely few months, the U.S. agreed to make important concessions and aid was resumed. A new hike in tensions produced a new nuclear test in 2009.

So, by now the nuclear crisis has continued for two decades, and it seems that it might easily continue 25 years. The North Korean government understands that a nuclear weapon is their major diplomatic card, and they are unlikely to surrender it under any circumstances. The outside world is disunited and, frankly, lacks any means to influence Pyongyang. So, we are quite likely to see more nuclear tests (largely successful) and more nuclear negotiations (largely unsuccessful) in the years or even decades to come.

Satellite imagery recently revealed new construction at the Yongbyon facility.

Read the full story here:
North Korea conducted first nuclear test in 2006
Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
10/10/10

There is an interesting article in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

Article Highlights
1. The idea that North Korea and Myanmar are collaborating on a nuclear weapons programs represents only one possible scenario among several that deserve closer examination.

2. Myanmar’s goal might be to improve its missile program or trade in illicit technology rather than build nuclear weapons.

3. Myanmar’s receipt of illegally-exported or questionable dual-use items should cause the international community to reexamine export controls and policies specific to trade with the Southeast Asian country.

Article Text:

Is Myanmar developing nuclear weapons, perhaps with the help of North Korea? That worrisome possibility, prompted by Myanmar’s receipt of dual-use technology via an illegal North Korean procurement network, has garnered considerable speculation. Compelling evidence amassed in reports published this year by the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), Jane’s Intelligence Review, and Al Jazeera indicates that, as the ISIS report put it, “There remain sound reasons to suspect that the military regime in Burma [Myanmar] might be pursuing a long-term strategy to make nuclear weapons.”1

The possible existence of such a program cannot and should not be discounted, but it is far from the only explanation that can account for Myanmar’s unusual imports. The dual-use technology sent to Myanmar — including a cylindrical grinder and magnetometer — are considerably beyond the country’s current technical capabilities, according to the DVB report. Such sophisticated devices, which could be used to produce nuclear- or missile-related parts, may point to a well-planned, long-term nuclear weapons program, perhaps assisted by North Korea.

However, alternate explanations also warrant consideration to better understand the nature of DPRK-Myanmar trade in such technologies. Plausible alternative scenarios include the use of Myanmar as a transshipment hub for items ultimately destined for North Korea, an evolving conventional missile program, procurement errors or other planning missteps, or some combination of these possibilities.

Myanmar as a transshipment hub. In late 2009, the Yokohama District Court in Japan found the president of Toko Boeki (a small Tokyo-based trading company) guilty of coordinating illegal WMD-related exports to Myanmar.2 Investigators determined that Toko Boeki had acquired cylindrical grinders and a magnetometer at the behest of New East International Company, a North Korean front company based in Hong Kong.3 Although New East International directed Toko Boeki to deliver the equipment to Myanmar, it is possible that the devices were not intended to remain there; Myanmar may have been a transfer point before the goods were shipped to another location — perhaps even North Korea.

Indeed, Myanmar has distinct advantages to North Korean procurement networks that want to circumvent sanctions and illegally divert dual-use equipment to Pyongyang. (See Editor’s Note.) Although it is also subject to sanctions, Myanmar is not as isolated as North Korea, and legitimate shipments originating from Japan, for example, can provide suitable cover for WMD-related deliveries.

In addition, Myanmar’s flourishing illegal trade networks — including drug and human trafficking — represent a familiarity with the kind of knowledge required to covertly transship deliveries to countries with more advanced WMD programs (such as North Korea). The rampant corruption associated with the military regime further enables illicit trade.

The revival of diplomatic and military relationships between Myanmar’s ruling junta and Pyongyang is another reason to consider whether North Korea, and not Myanmar, may have been the final destination for the dual-use equipment.4 Chartered or diplomatic air transport, necessary to ferry officials between capitals, is less susceptible to interdiction, offering an ideal conduit for the transfer of some types of dual-use equipment from Myanmar to North Korea. A UN panel of experts on Resolution 1874 (which strengthened sanctions on North Korea after its second nuclear test) highlighted such a scenario in a May 2010 report PDF, suggesting that Pyongyang may turn to illicit air cargo shipments as a preferred mode of transport for its illegal trade.

A conventional missile program. Myanmar may be an ideal transshipment hub, but reports from ISIS and DVB indicate that dual-use machine tools from Japan and Europe are not simply being stored in Myanmar, but also used there. This could indicate that the devices may actually be intended for use in Myanmar’s indigenous missile program.

Although Myanmar’s overall technological development appears limited in comparison with North Korea, the majority of the questionable dual-use items received by Myanmar may truly be for its own missile development effort. Acquisition of conventionally armed short- and medium-range ballistic missiles would provide the junta with a significant strategic advantage over regional and domestic rivals, and short-range missiles could be useful to fight insurgent groups that challenge the junta’s authority.5

Further, Myanmar’s defense industry already produces artillery and mobile rocket launchers, and the country reportedly has spent more than a decade improving its missile production capabilities.6 This practical experience could facilitate Myanmar’s eventual creation of larger missiles, such as Scarabs or early Scud derivatives. Myanmar cannot yet produce these missiles, but the equipment identified in the Toko Boeki case and in the DVB report could be used to help it develop more advanced missile designs.

Alternative scenarios. It is also possible that, after some of the questionable dual-use equipment had already been received, a North Korea-Myanmar proliferation relationship fell into disarray due to the enormous complexity that plagues all WMD programs. Payment disputes (similar to those PDF that held up Myanmar’s negotiations with Russia for a 10 megawatt research reactor) could be one cause.7 Myanmar’s acquisition of equipment beyond its technical capabilities could also be explained by a procurement error or an overestimation of indigenous know-how, as the DVB report acknowledges. In 2002, Myanmar expressed interest in buying a mini-submarine from Pyongyang, according to Jane’s, but abandoned the idea due in part to its lack of expertise.8

The transfer of such advanced equipment could also be an example of aggressive sales of unsuitable technology to a naïve junta, similar to Geoffrey Forden’s suggestion that North Korea has been selling subpar missile technology to states in the Middle East. It is also plausible that a core group of scientists has the ear of the junta — as well as its funding — and may have over-promised deliverables. These scientists might include U Thaung, the pro-nuclear energy minister of science and technology, and Ko Ko Oo, who is director general of the Department of Atomic Energy and former director of the Department of Technical and Vocational Education (DTVE). The two departments shared the same address, phone number, and fax number until Myanmar’s capital was moved to Naypidyaw, and the DTVE is an end-user of some of the questionable dual-use equipment that Myanmar has acquired, according to ISIS.9

Another possible scenario is that Myanmar could be “warehousing” devices for North Korea under a barter agreement that allows Myanmar to train personnel on the dual-use equipment (and thereby gain valuable hands-on experience with the devices) before it is ultimately moved to North Korea. It is possible that Myanmar may even be viewed as an offshore production hub for transfer of items to North Korea or other interested parties. Sanctions make it nearly impossible for Pyongyang to acquire controlled, technically advanced equipment that requires installation and maintenance by foreign technicians; North Korea and Myanmar may have therefore collaborated to purchase the equipment, install it in Myanmar, and use the machines to produce advanced missile or nuclear parts that could then be more easily routed via air cargo to North Korea (or elsewhere).

Conclusion. The possibility that Myanmar is pursuing a nuclear weapons program is just one of many potential explanations for its importation of technologically advanced dual-use items. The alarming prospect of a nuclear-armed Myanmar cannot be ignored, but neither should it prevent the assessment of other feasible scenarios. More research is needed to determine precisely why Myanmar received questionable dual-use items and to discover their final destination, if Myanmar is a transshipment point. Export control regimes should take note of the potential for diversion of dual-use items through Myanmar, and to protect regional stability, governments in Asia should reexamine their trade policies toward the Southeast Asian country.

Read the full article here:
North Korea and Myanmar: A match for nuclear proliferation?
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Catherine Boyle, Melissa Hanham, Robert Shaw
9/27/2010

According to Bloomberg:

Allegations by a Myanmar defector that the military-run country is pursuing a nuclear program are corroborated by newly available commercial satellite images, Jane’s Intelligence Review said in an article released yesterday.

The photos of buildings and security fences near the country’s capital, Naypyidaw, confirm reports by Major Sai Thein Win of machine tool factories and other facilities alleged to be part of a nascent program to build nuclear weapons, the magazine reported from London.

“They will not make a bomb with the technology they currently possess or the intellectual capability,” Jane’s analyst Allison Puccioni said in an interview. “The two factors do make it possible to have a route to one.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressed concern about reports that North Korea and Myanmar are expanding military ties and sharing nuclear technology at a meeting of Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Thailand last year.

Clinton said the U.S. would remain “vigilant” against any military cooperation between the two countries. Yesterday, Clinton announced further sanctions against North Korea in an effort to halt the country’s nuclear-weapons program.

Sai said he worked at two factories involved in the nuclear program. His report to a Burmese opposition news website, Democratic Voice of Burma, based in Norway, included documents and color photographs of the interior of the installations.

The satellite imagery reviewed by Jane’s showed only the exterior of the buildings, Puccioni said.

‘Overly Ambitious’

Jane’s said Myanmar’s nuclear program is “overly ambitious with limited expertise,” in a statement yesterday. While Myanmar is a signatory to international agreements to control nuclear weapons use, it hasn’t agreed to more recent changes in the treaties and therefore isn’t subject to international inspections, the magazine said.

“With Myanmar’s current freedom from sanctions and relative economic prosperity, the junta may be able to outsource the technical know-how and tools to reach its goals far sooner than expected,” Christian Le Mière, editor of Jane’s Intelligence Review, said in a statement.

“Someone had to be assisting them, that’s the frightening thing,” said David Kay, a former United Nations weapons inspector and now a fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies in Arlington, Virginia, in an interview. “Myanmar is uniquely incapable of carrying this through.”

North Korea could be the country providing aid, said Michael J. Green, an adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former senior director for Asia on the National Security Council under President George W. Bush.

North Korea

During the Bush administration, North Korea discussed delivering short-range missiles and nuclear capability to Myanmar, Green said.

“We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology” and indications of clandestine military cooperation between two of Asia’s most secretive regimes, Clinton said last year. “I’m not saying it is happening, but we want to be prepared to stand against it.”

State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said on July 12 that the U.S. continues “to have concerns about Burma’s relationship with North Korea. It’s something that we watch very, very carefully and consistently.”

Last year, the U.S. Navy followed the Kang Nam I, a North Korean freighter headed in the direction of Myanmar with unknown cargo. The ship turned around and returned home.

The evidence points to a method of uranium enrichment, laser enrichment, that the North Koreans have never used, Kay said. “If it is laser enrichment the finger points more toward Chinese assistance or some place in the former Soviet Union,” he said.

Read the full story here:
Myanmar Nuclear Weapon Program Claims Supported by Photos, Jane’s Reports
Bloomberg
Peter S. Green
7/21/2010

According to the Irrawaddy:

A recent New York Times op-ed article by Aung Lynn Htut, formerly a high-ranking Burmese military intelligence officer who defected in 2005 while he served as an attaché at the Burmese embassy in Washington, shed new light on the history of the still murky relationship between Burma and North Korea, two of the world’s most isolated, secretive and oppressive regimes.

Burma broke diplomatic relations with North Korea in 1983, when North Korean agents attempted to assassinate the South Korean president on Burmese soil. But according to Aung Lynn Htut, shortly after current junta-chief Snr-Gen Than Shwe assumed power in 1992, he surreptitiously moved to renew ties with Pyongyang.

“Than Shwe secretly made contact with Pyongyang. Posing as South Korean businessmen, North Korean weapon experts began arriving in Burma. I remember these visitors. They were given special treatment at the Rangoon airport,” Aung Lynn Htut said in his June 18 article.

The junta kept its renewed ties with North Korea secret for more than a decade because it was working to establish relationships with Japanese and South Korean businesses, Aung Lynn Htut said. By 2006, however, “the junta’s generals felt either desperate or confident enough to publicly resume diplomatic relations with North Korea.” 

In November 2008, the junta’s No 3, Gen Shwe Mann, visited North Korea and signed a memorandum of understanding, officially formalizing military cooperation between Burma and North Korea. Photographs showed him touring secret tunnel complexes built into the sides of mountains thought to store and protect jet aircraft, missiles, tanks and nuclear and chemical weapons.

According to Aung Lynn Htut, Lt-Gen Tin Aye, the No.5 in the Burma armed forces and the chief of Military Ordnance, is now the main liaison in the relationship with Pyongyang. Tin Aye has often traveled to North Korea as well as attended ceremonies at the North Korean embassy in Rangoon.

In September 2009, The New Light of Myanmar reported that Tin Aye went to the anniversary celebration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), held in a hotel in Rangoon. In February, Tin Aye, along with other senior officials, attended the birthday event of the Dear Leader of North Korea at the embassy.

Flights and ships from North Korea to Burma have been carrying more than just Burmese generals. Analysts, including Burma military expert Andrew Selth, say that for years Burma and North Korea have used a barter system whereby Burma exchanges primary products for North Korean military technologies.

In June 2009, a North Korean ship, the Kang Nam I, was diverted from going to Burma after being trailed by the US navy. Then in April, another North Korean ship, the Chong Gen, docked in Burma carrying suspicious cargo, allegedly in violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which restricts North Korea from arms deals and from trading in technology that could be used for nuclear weapons.

In May, the seven-member UN panel monitoring the implementation of sanctions against North Korea said in a report that Pyongyang is involved in banned nuclear and ballistic activities in Iran, Syria and Burma with the aid of front companies around the world.

According to the UN report, a North Korean company, Namchongang Trading, which is known to be associated with illicit procurement for Burma’s nuclear and military program and is on the US sanctions list, was involved in suspicious activities in Burma.

The report also noted three individuals were arrested in Japan in 2009 for attempting to illegally export a magnetometer—a dual-use instrument that can be employed in making missile control system magnets and gas centrifuge magnets—to Burma via Malaysia allegedly under the direction of another company known to be associated with illicit procurement for North Korea’s nuclear and military programs.

The UN experts also said that the Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation has handled several transactions involving millions of dollars directly related to deals between Burma and the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation.
 
With this string of events and the suspicions surrounding them as a dramatic lead in, on June 4, Al Jazeera aired a news documentary prepared by the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) which was written by Robert Kelley, a nuclear scientist and former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The DVB report claimed that the ruling military junta in Burma is “mining uranium, converting it to uranium compounds for reactors and bombs, and is trying to build a reactor and/or an enrichment plant that could only be useful for a bomb.”

The IAEA wrote to Burma’s agency representative, Tin Win, on June 14 and asked whether the information provided in the DVB report was true. Burma, which is a member of the IAEA, a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a signatory to the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty, responded with a letter stating that the DVB report allegations are “groundless and unfounded.”

“No activity related to uranium conversion, enrichment, reactor construction or operation has been carried out in the past, is ongoing or is planned for the future in Myanmar [Burma],” the letter said.

The letter also noted that Burma is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the agency’s so-called safeguards agreement. “As stated in the safeguards agreement, Myanmar will notify the agency if it plans to carry out any nuclear activities,” the letter said.

The regime, however, has not signed the IAEA’s Additional Protocol, meaning that the agency has no power to set up an inspection of Burma’s nuclear facilities under the existing mechanism known as the Small Quantities Protocol.

Previously, on June 11, Burma’s state radio and television news had reported the Foreign Ministry’s denial of the allegations in the DVB report. The denial claimed that anti-government groups in collusion with the media had launched the allegations with the goal of “hindering Burma’s democratic process and to tarnish the political image of the government.”

The Foreign Ministry denial also addressed Nyapyidaw’s relationship with Pyongyang. “Following the re-establishment of diplomatic relations, Myanmar [Burma] and the DPRK, as independent sovereign states, have been engaging in promoting trade and cooperation between the two countries in the same way Myanmar is dealing with others,” the ministry said in its statement.

The regime did acknowledge that the Chong Gen docked at Thilawa Port near Rangoon in April. But the statement said the North Korean vessel was involved in importing cement from North Korea and exporting rice from Burma.

But in an article for Asia Times online, Burma analyst Bertil Linter noted that, “if carrying only innocuous civilian goods, as the statement maintains, there would seemingly have been no reason for authorities to cut electricity around the area when the Chong Gen, a North Korean ship flying the Mongolian flag of convenience, docked on the outskirts of Yangon.”

“According to intelligence sources, security was tight as military personnel offloaded heavy material, including Korean-made air defense radars. The ship left the port with a return cargo of rice and sugar, which could mean that it was, at least in part, a barter deal. On January 31 this year, another North Korean ship, the Yang M V Han A, reportedly delivered missile components also at Yangon’s Thilawa port,” Linter said.

Strategypage.com, a military affairs website covering armed forces worldwide, said, “Indications are that the North Korean ship that delivered a mysterious cargo four months ago, was carrying air defense radars (which are now being placed on hills up north) and ballistic missile manufacturing equipment. Dozens of North Korean technicians have entered the country in the last few months, and have been seen working at a military facility outside Mandalay. It’s unclear what this is for. Burma has no external enemies, and ballistic missiles are of no use against internal opposition.”

In his Asia Times online story, Lintner noted that on June 24, the DVB reported that a new radar and missile base had been completed near Mohnyin in Myanmar’s northern Kachin State, and he reported that work on similar radar and missile bases has been reported from Kengtung in eastern Shan State,160 kilometers north of the Thai border town of Mae Sai.

“Since Myanmar is not known to have imported radars and missile components from any country other than North Korea, the installations would appear to be one of the first visible outcomes of a decade of military cooperation,” Lintner said.

Lintner also reported that Western intelligence sources know that 30 to 40 North Korean missile technicians are currently working at a facility near Minhla on the Irrawaddy River in Magwe Division, and that some of the technicians may have arrived overland by bus from China to give the appearance of being Chinese tourists. 

North Korea has also issued adamant denials with respect to allegations regarding its relationship with Burma.

According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), on June 21 Pyongyang said, “The US is now making much fuss, floating the sheer fiction that the DPRK is helping Myanmar [Burma] in its nuclear development.”

The KCNA often highlights the close relationship between North Korea and Burma.

On June 20, the Pyongyang news agency reported that ex-Col Than Tun, deputy chairman of the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd., sent a statement cheering Kim Jong Il’s 46th anniversary at the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

On April 18, Korean state-run- media reported that Than Tun also issued a statement cheering the 17th anniversary of Kim Jong Il’s chairing of North Korea’s National Defense Commission.

“Kim Jong Il’s field inspection of KPA [Korean People’s Army] units served as a main source that helped bolster [North Korea's] self-reliant defense capability in every way,” the statement noted.

Military sources said the Union of Myanmar Economic Holding Ltd, managed by the junta, is responsible for purchasing imported weapons for Burma’s armed forces, including transferring money to overseas banks such as Korea Kwangson Banking Corporation.

Meanwhile, in addition to its escalating relationship with North Korea, the Burmese military regime has recently boosted ties with Iran, which according to the UN report is also allegedly receiving nuclear and missile technologies from North Korea.

In recent years, Burmese and Iranian officials visited their counterparts homeland for the purported purpose of improving economic ties. Observers, however, said Than Shwe has made a tactical decision to develop relationships with other “pariah states,” particularly enemies of the US, to relieve Western pressure on his regime.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Ali Fathollahi met Burmese Foreign Minister Nyan Win and Minister of Energy Lun Thi during his trip to Burma on June 15-17.

“The two sides reiterated their desire to further expand the ties of friendship and economic cooperation and to increase cooperation in the regional international forums such as [the] United Nations and Non-Aligned Movement,” The New Light of Myanmar reported on June 18.

Fathollahi’s visit came three months after Maung Myint’s visit to Iran on March 8-11, when he met Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki and Deputy Minister of Petroleum H. Noghrehkar Shirazi.

Read the full story below:
Burma-North Korea Ties: Escalating Over Two Decades
Irrawaddy
Wai Moe
7/7/2010

According to the BBC:

A United Nations panel has accused North Korea of continuing to export nuclear and missile technology in defiance of a UN ban.

The experts said North Korea has used front companies and intermediaries to sell weapons and provide illegal assistance to Iran, Syria and Burma.

The preliminary report was compiled by a seven-member group that monitors Pyongyang’s compliance with sanctions.

…

The 47-page report outlined a broad range of techniques used by North Korea to evade sanctions imposed by the UN after the North’s nuclear tests of 2006 and 2009, the Associated Press reports.

The report said North Korea had moved quickly to replace banned individuals and entities with others to enable it to continue the nuclear trade.

Among a number of “masking techniques”, it said the North describes exports falsely, mislabels shipping container contents, falsifies information about the destinations of goods and uses “multiple layers of intermediaries, shell companies, and financial institutions”.

The report said North Korea has a range of legitimate trade offices but also sustains links with international criminal organisations to pursue the banned trades.

An unnamed diplomat told Reuters the findings were “not entirely surprising”.

“The point is that North Korea has been providing that kind of aid to Iran, Syria and Burma,” he said.

The report comes before a crucial day of talks in New York about the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

It also comes at a time of increased tension surrounding what international investigators say was a deadly North Korean torpedo attack on a South Korean warship in March.

Read the full article here:
North Korea ‘trading nuclear technology’ says UN panel
BBC
5/28/2010