Ten Iranian Missile Engineers Visited N. Korea

Yonhapnews.co.kr: Translation.

Ten Iranian missile engineers recently visited N. Korea, and the purpose of their visit is apparently to join the launch preparation for the long-range Taepodong-2 missile, according to Sankei Shimbun (of N. Korea) quoting U.S. government figures and military sources on N. Korea.

According to the sources, the (Iranian) delegation to N. Korea are made up of senior engineers for missile development at Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and they went into N. Korea via Beijing.

Their immediate mission could be to verify the capability of missile equipments which N. Korea imported from China. Apparently, Iran wanted to collect information (on the equipments) in order to determine whether to purchase them from China. READ MORE

In particular, the sources said there are possibilities that N. Korea and Iran had discussions on the joint project for missile's liquid fuels.

It is backed up by the analysis of Western military experts that the two countries, with China's help, have been jointly developing a turbo pump which injects fuel into Taepodong-2.

Iranian Embassy to Japan categorically denied the allegation that Iranian engineers visited N. Korea, according to this paper.

In a related report, Japanese Foreign Minister Aso Daro and U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, both on G-8 Foreign Ministers' Conference in Moscow, had a meeting on (June) 30th, and agreed to an understanding that N. Korea missile launch issue should be resolved through dialogues, according to Japanese media.

Foreign Minister Aso emphasized, "It is important to urge restraints on N. Korea, and the issue should be resolved through dialogues, such as 6-party talks," and Secretary Rice also said, "It is important to urge cooperation among countries involved."