Cash-strapped Kim Jong-un ‘may flog secrets of North Korea’s nuclear missile programme to Iran’
Iranian scientists and military officers have reportedly observed most of North Korea's recent major missile and nuclear tests
FEARS are growing cash-strapped Kim Jong-un may flog the secrets of his rogue state's nuclear missile programme to Iran.
The US and South Korea are on high alert after receiving reports North Korea is to test-fire an intermediate-range ballistic missile when Donald Trump enters the White House.
The actual military relationship between North Korea and Iran is a shadowy secret but decades ago the two countries openly exchanged missile technology.
Iranian scientists and military officers have reportedly observed most of North Korea's recent major missile and nuclear test.
Now it's feared cash-rich Iran could offer monetary assistance to the hermit kingdom in exchange for missile technology.
Security ties between North Korea and Iran reach back at least as far as the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, when North Korea supplied Iran with hundreds of Soviet-designed Scud-B and Scud-C missiles.
Expert say evidence the two countries may be working together again are not just the similarities between their Scud derivatives but also similar design choices, incorporated into the two countries' space launch rockets.
One such instance of technology transfer came to light earlier this year when North Korea tested a new rocket engine incorporating Iranian technology.
And observers believe North Korea would have no qualms in flogging their nuke secrets to an old enemy of the West to help solve its money woes.
"What confidence do we have that North Korea, for the right amount of cash, wouldn't sell just about anything?" said Tom Karako, a senior fellow and director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies
"The answer to that is: just about none. There's just about nothing that they won't sell. I don't think we have any reason to be confident about the North Koreans being self-constrained.
"This is something that could come to a head far sooner than anyone would like."