N.Korea provides nuclear aid to Iran -intel reports

By Louis Charbonneau

VIENNA (Reuters) – Recent intelligence reports accuse North
Korea of secretly helping Iran develop its nuclear program,
raising fresh concerns about Pyongyang’s nuclear proliferation
and Tehran’s atomic intentions.

The United States and the European Union fear Iran is using
its nuclear energy program as a front to develop nuclear
weapons and have called on Iran to cease all sensitive atomic
work. Tehran says its program is peaceful and refuses to give
up its sovereign right to a full atomic program.

“In the late 1990s, cooperation began between the two
countries, which focused on nuclear (research and
development),” said an intelligence report obtained from a
non-U.S. diplomat.

“There has been a significant improvement in relations
between Iran and North Korea over the past few months,” the
report said.

A recent example is what the three-page report described as
a “special secret course to provide technological and practical
information to outstanding students.” Among the lecturers are
senior North Korean scientists and atomic technicians, it said.

“This nuclear cooperation between the two countries has
apparently increased significantly during the past year as seen
in the arrival of an academic delegation from North Korea in
Iran and the existence of this special course,” it said.

The secret masters level course at Tehran’s Polytechnic
University covered “dual use” nuclear technology that could be
applied to civilian or military applications, the report said.

“It seems Iran is taking another step to promote its
military nuclear project by exploiting North Korea’s extensive
technological information in the nuclear sphere,” it said.

A senior Iranian official who was shown the report did not
respond to several requests for a comment.

A nuclear expert who was involved in the International
Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) investigation of Iran’s atomic
program said there was no way the IAEA would get access to this
kind of information but he said it was credible.

“Only intelligence agencies can get this kind of
information, not the IAEA,” the expert told Reuters on
condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the
information.

“But it’s credible. No one would be surprised if this was
true.”

He added that it was not illegal for Iran to get such
training from North Korean experts, though he said any nuclear
cooperation between the two countries was worrying.

“NO LEGITIMATE COUNTRY”

David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and head of
the Washington-based Institute for Science and International
Security think-tank, said North Korea was the only country that
would give Iran sensitive nuclear know-how at the moment.

“No legitimate country would come to Tehran and teach this
stuff,” Albright said.

He said he was worried North Korea might even be trying
take on the role that Pakistan once played in Iran.

“The fear is that North Korea would replace the Khan
network,” Albright said. He was referring to a global black
market set up by the father of Pakistan’s atomic weapons
program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, that supplied Iran, Libya and
possibly North Korea with sensitive nuclear technology.

Khan’s network has largely been shut down, U.N. experts
say.

President Bush has listed both Iran and North Korea as
members of an “axis of evil” of states seeking the world’s
deadliest weapons.

Communist North Korea, which withdrew from the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty in 2003, says it already has the bomb.

A diplomat from one of the three European Union states
trying to persuade Iran to give up its uranium enrichment
program — France, Britain and Germany — agreed that the
intelligence reports concerning Iranian and North Korean
cooperation were plausible.

“The North Koreans are willing to do everything for money,”
the European diplomat told Reuters. Several Asian diplomats
agreed that the reports were plausible.

There have been other intelligence reports on Iranian
cooperation with North Korea. Last month, Britain’s Telegraph
newspaper quoted a senior Western intelligence official as
saying Tehran was negotiating with North Korea to build a
series of underground bunkers to hide atomic equipment in Iran.

Last week, the Japanese daily Sankei Shimbun said Japan was
worried technology for a long-range cruise missile that can
carry nuclear warheads may have been leaked to North Korea from
Iran. This information was given to Japan by a U.S.
intelligence agency, said Sankei, a conservative daily.