North Korea plans to upgrade missiles with Russian technology

Thursday, 03-Apr-2003

North Korea, locked in a nuclear standoff with the United States, plans to import leading-edge Russian missile and rocket systems via Syria to upgrade its ballistic missiles, a press report said Thursday.

The Stalinist state is expected to use the hardware, including the hi-tech tactical missile Iskandar-E and the multiple launch rocket system Smerch, to upgrade the guidance system and other functions of its long-range missiles, the Japanese newspaper Sankei Shimbun said.

North Korea and Syria have a secret deal on the trade, possibly based on an agreement on scientific and technological cooperation which was concluded last year, the conservative daily quoted military sources, well informed on Korean affairs, as saying.

The science and technology accord was signed when North Korea's number-two Kim Yong-Nam, the head of the Supreme People's Assembly, visited Syria in July last year.

At that time, Kim handed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a personal letter from North Korea's absolute leader Kim Jong-Il, calling for closer ties between the two countries.

North Korean missile engineers are already staying in Syria to prepare for the arrival of the Russian hardware, the report said. They are expected to arrange the further shipment of the hardware under cover by sea to North Korea.

The Russians have not been informed of the secret transfer deal, the report said.

In exchange for the shipment, North Korea will cooperate with Syria's development of ballistic missiles, tthe report said.

North Korea has ballistic Rodong missiles, which can strike almost all of Japan, and longer-range Taepodong missiles.

In 1998, Pyongyang sent shockwaves around the world by test-firing a suspected Taepodong-1 missile, part of which flew over Japan's main island of Honshu and into the Pacific.

Five years earlier, North Korea launched into the Sea of Japan a Rodong-1 missile with a range of 1,300 kilometers (810 miles) after testing two types of crude Scud missiles.

According to South Korean defence ministry data, North Korea is currently testing Taepodong-1 missiles with a range of 2,500 kilometers (1,550 miles) and is also developing a longer-range Taepodong-2.

Some military analysts here have predicted that this year the North would test-fire a Taepodong-2, which could be capable of reaching parts of the continental United States.

North Korea has launched at least two short-range land-to-ship missiles off its coasts in recent weeks, as it has angrily alleged that is is being eyed as the next target of a pre-emptive US military attack to snuff out its suspected nuclear arms ambitions.

Story Link

here is a video that showing smerch in action

www.rusarm.ru...

So we have some rag in Pennsylvania, reprinting a French Press Agency's (the same Agency regularly dismissed by some posters in Iraq-threads) lift from A Japanese source's accounts of NK buying second-hand munitions from Syria.
This is how likely???

Why is it that, no matter how often I telephone Bill Gates and chastise him, he refuses to take "copy" and "paste" off the menus?

[Edited on 5-4-2003 by Estragon]

And since I suspect that few posters (or you) know anything at all about the Sankei Shimbun ( a Tokyo right-wing mass-readership rag owned by the awful Murdochesque FCG wiith a long history of anti-NK yellow journalism), may I suggest that you occasionally do a little research on tehse dubious sources before youy press Ctrl+V?
Then you might be able to indroduce some comments or suggestions rather than simply wasting bandwidth when a link might have sufficed.
I'm not trying to be critical; but take it from me that this is just the sort of invitation to groundless drivel that constantly spoils any attempt at quality-control or assurance on ATS.
It is very easy:
" Japanese sources suggest Syria, already suspected of aiding Saddam, is supplying hi-tech weaponry to "Axis of Evil" member, North Korea. Link Here:".

22 words and a URL, more interesting, economical, original and it gives colleagues a choice.

Knowing the Administration, We'll be going after Syria and N. Korea next if they keep up with their BS.

Hi, MM: let us hope not and my evaluation ( for what it's worth) is that it won't happen in either case.
My earlier posting was just another effort to make posters stop just cut'n'pasting brainless drivel without first reading and thinking.
For Heaven's sake: this gullibility. Do posters not know that NK has a border with Russia: entirely porous and about as far from Moscow as one can get? And they're going to Syria to acquire third-hand missiles???

Estragon, I too hope we do not come to military conflict with N. Korea and or Syria. After this war with Iraq our troops are going to be tired ect. If we end up fighting N. Korea, I would think (unfortunately) that we would sustain much more lose then what we have suffered in Iraq. Let's just get finished with this war before we start thinking about future conflicts, our troops need our support right now.

your chastisement of my (in your opinion) irresponsible post has been taken to heart. In the future I will endeavour to be more responsible by thoroughly reading & researching as much as possible before posting. And of course, always think before posting.

Sincerely,
Deep

And my apologies, deep, for an excessively censorious tone. I was suffering from Depleted Drivel exposure elsewhere.
My posting was onlya suggestion for some research and a "shaping" of one's actual post so that it was both economical and -in the best sense -provocative.
For all manner of reasons this is a good link: I would relate it to internal Japanese politics (if you can call what the Japs get up to "politics") where the right wing is clamouring with growing intensity for some sort of Japanese rearmament and an end to this "Self defence force" nonsense that has left the US with the burden and the bills for so long.
However, the Syria angle is intriguing: US/Israeli provocation; oil pipelines (the US overthrew the Syrian leadership not long after WWII for just such a reason (search Tapline).
On balance, space-filling in a poor newspaper; but I think there is a Japanese angle.

they find boxes of ammo in Iraq saying that they are from Jordan and France
now we find russia supplying arms to North korea how can we call these people "allies"