Posted on 12/30/2016 7:18:11 PM PST by TigerLikesRooster
Satellite Pics Suggest Iran, North Korea Cooperating on Nuclear Research
by TheTower.org Staff | 12.29.16 4:28 pm
The discovery of a working North Korean missile site that was previously thought to be inactive may suggest that the country is cooperating with Iran on ballistic missile and nuclear technology, Voice of America reported Wednesday.
PRESS RELEASE: Strategic Sentinel Finds Previously Unknown North Korean Site Read more here: https://t.co/NJk9a9LBgd#NorthKorea #VOA @W7VOA pic.twitter.com/f3S24izQOn
— Strategic Sentinel (@StratSentinel) December 28, 2016
Satellite images taken and analyzed by the intelligence firm Strategic Sentinel discovered a missile silo in Geumchang-ri, a mountainous area in North Pyongan province, where American intelligence believed that the country was conducting nuclear weapons research in the late 1990s.
According to Strategic Sentinel, the missile silo has dimensions very similar to one known to exist in Tabriz, Iran.
“If this Iranian site is housing missiles and the North Korean site that we have uncovered is the exact same dimension, then it’s quite possible that the site that we have uncovered is housing missiles as well,” explained Strategic Sentinel founder Ryan Barenklau. He also suggested that the two countries could be collaborating on nuclear research.
In How Iran and North Korea Became Cyber-Terror Buddies, which was published in the January 2015 issue of The Tower Magazine, investigative journalist Claudia Rosett offered some background on the two rogue nations’ history of joint missile development.
In 1992, for example, a North Korean freighter slipped past U.S. Navy surveillance and delivered a cargo of Scud missiles to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. In 2003, a North Korean defector testified before Congress that he traveled from North Korea to Iran in 1989 and helped the Iranians test-fire a North Korean missile. In 2007, a secret State Department cable made public by Wikileaks stated,
Iran and North Korea have continued their longstanding cooperation on ballistic missile technology via air-shipments of ballistic-missile related items. We assess that some of the shipments consist of ballistic missile jet vanes that frequently transit Beijing on regularly scheduled flights of Air Koryo and Iran Air.
In 2010, a Congressional Research Service report by analyst Larry A. Niksch estimated that “North Korea earns about $1.5 billion annually from missile sales to other countries. It appears that much of this comes from missile sales and collaboration with Iran in missile development.” Also in 2010, the New York Times reported that Iran obtained 19 missiles from North Korea that were “much more powerful than anything Washington has publicly conceded that Tehran has in its arsenal.” This too was based on a classified State Department cable made public by Wikileaks. In 2013, a report from the National Air and Space Intelligence Center stated, “Iran has an extensive missile development program, and has received support from entities in Russia, China, and North Korea.” Among Iran’s ballistic missiles is the intermediate-range Shahab 3, based on North Korea’s No Dong missile, with a range long enough to strike Israel.
This longtime partnership continues to raise the possibility that, as Rosett wrote in Forbes two weeks ago, “the two countries are also in nuclear cahoots, because ballistic missiles are basically cost-efficient only as vehicles for delivering nuclear warheads”
While Iran has scaled back its nuclear program since the signing of last year’s nuclear deal, North Korea has picked up the pace, reportedly detonating two nuclear warheads in 2016. The increase in North Korean nuclear activity as Iran was slowing down suggests that “North Korea’s nuclear program might be secretly doubling as a nuclear backshop for Iran,” she wrote.
After Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon in early January, retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, a former commandant of the U.S. Army War College, told Fox News that “We know that the Iranians were at the last nuclear test a couple of year ago, [and] we know that the Iranians are helping the North Koreans miniaturize their nuclear weapons.” He indicated that the North Korean nuclear program experienced several failures until it received assistance from Iran. “What does this say about our nuclear deal with Iran?” Scales asked. “It says Iran is able to circumvent it by using their technological colleagues in Pakistan and their test site facility in North Korea to push their own nuclear ambitions….The Iranians and North Koreans are both developing long-range ballistic missiles by collaborating together.”
Later that month, researchers from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies published a paper (.pdf) outlining Iran’s past and present military dealings with North Korea, concluding that “the signs of military and scientific cooperation between Iran and North Korea suggest that Pyongyang could have been involved in Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile program, and that state-run trading companies may have assisted in critical aspects of Iran’s illicit nuclear-related activities.” The researchers recommended a number of countermeasures, including getting China more involved in non-proliferation efforts and ensuring the transparency of the international financial system to prevent money-laundering funds used to buy or sell illicit materials.
P!
Not a “suggestion”. It’s a fact
Is this really any surprise?
To anybody but an Obola-obsessed liberal, that is.
The Obama freak-show still has a few weeks to fly in more palettes of $100 dollar bills, maybe that would slow them down a bit on nuclear bomb building? You know, stopping to count all those free infidel billions,
Of course I’m sure they would never consider just outright buying one off the shelf from starving North Korea,
Ouch...
This story leaves a big knot in my stomach.
Of course.
Page 4 details a 2007 explosion in the Aleppo facility that killed several Iranian, Syrian and North Korean missile technicians.
Obama’s legacy.
When (not if) Iran sets off it’s first nuke, Obama will own it.
Iran would have no fear of a nuclear treaty if it had a paralell program in a clandestine site in North Korea where its tests would be disguised as those of the NK’s. U.S. intelligence would figure this out eventually but under Obama would not be disclosed. When Bush 43 succeeded Clinton he discovered in 2002 NK had been running a secret weapons program they’d agreed to dismantle by treaty.
FROM NTI: The international community also became concerned that North Korea might have an illicit highly enriched uranium (HEU) program. In the summer of 2002, U.S. intelligence reportedly discovered evidence of transfers of HEU technology and/or materials from Pakistan to North Korea in exchange for ballistic missiles technology. [23] (Later, in early 2004, it was revealed that Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr. A. Q. Khan had sold gas-centrifuge technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran.) [24]
http://www.nti.org/learn/countries/north-korea/nuclear/
More of Obama’s legacy.
Only the Obama Misadministration would ignore this, miss it and dismiss it.
The No. Koreans (with Red Chinese help and perhaps Pakistani help) have been aiding the Iranians for decades. That is just the way the game is played.
No. Korean advisors and troops have been reported in Chichuahua Province in Mexico many decades ago and as Mugabe’s Shocktroops in Zimbabwe in the 1980’s.
No. Korea needs money and has become the communist “Mercenaries R Us” for anyone who could pay them but do it covertly.
This is only a part of the “Axis of Evil” which Obama and his traitorous advisors refused to acknowledge or do anything about.
yeah, well, the mullahs suddenly have $150 billion bucks to spend. that buys a lot of crappy “made in north korea” stuff.
This confirms what many of us have suspected for a long time. North Korea has conducted five nuclear weapons tests. Their highest estimated yield was in September, 2016. It was around 30 kilotons which is twice the yield of the Hiroshima bomb. When you think about these nuclear weapons being used to trigger an EMP bomb, then there is big concern. With better miniaturization and strong rockets for delivery, Iran could well be at the point where Obama’s nuclear treaty is worthless.
I suspect that China may be giving technology to North Korea which is also going to Iran.
Access to Iran’s oil is a strong incentive.
We need a name for them........hmmm, how about “axis of evil”?
How long have our 17 “intelligence” agencies and Obama known this.
Re the question “How long have our 17 “intelligence” agencies and Obama known this. Since Obama discovered that there were 57 states in the USA.
That’s how long.
Access to Iran’s oil is a strong incentive.
That could be an interesting argument. It might explain why there is an indication that China is suddenly willing to share its rocket technology with N. Korea. The design of SLBM missiles N. Koreans are testing lately is suspiciously similar to old Chinese rocket design, according to some experts.
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