N. Korea and Russia to cooperate on missiles programs
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Tuesday, February 15, 2000
TOKYO -- Pyongyang and Moscow have called for cooperation in missile
programs to combat the United States and Japanese efforts to set up a
theater missile defense system.
Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov discussed missile cooperation with
his North Korean counterpart, Paek Nam-Sun, during Ivanov's visit last week
to North Korea, the official KCNA news agency said on Saturday.
"The foreign ministers of the two countries expressed deep concern over
the U.S. and Japan's efforts to set up a theatre
missile defense system," the report quoted Paek as saying. "Both sides
shared the view that the moves to escalate tensions are a source of
upsetting strategic balance, increasing the danger of war and sparking a new
arms race in Northeast Asia and the rest of the world and acknowledged the
need for the countries concerned to cope with them with concerted efforts."
North Korea clarified its position that it would "strongly retaliate
against any move to discriminate against it in the issue of satellite and
missile launch that belongs to the sovereignty of an independent state,"
Paek said.
His statement followed Ivanov's Japan trip during which the Russian
minister said he had not discussed the issue of North Korean missiles in
Pyongyang.
Ivanov and Paek last week signed a new friendship pact ending a Cold War
alliance under which the now-defunct Soviet Union was to send troops to
fight alongside North Korea in any armed conflict.
The new treaty requires Russia and North Korea to simply not back any
other state that attacks the other.
Last week, a U.S. expert on international security, William Schneider,
Jr., told a Senate subcommittee on international security and proliferation
that, within five years, North Korea and Iran, together with Russia and
China, would have the ballistic missile capability to inflict major damage
on the United States.
"These newer, developing threats in North Korea, Iran, and Iraq are in
addition to those still posed by the existing ballistic missile arsenals of
Russia and China, nations with which the United States is not now in
conflict but which remain in uncertain transition, " Schneider said. "The fewer
ballistic missile-equipped nations capabilities will not match those of U.S.
systems for accuracy or reliability., However, they would be able to inflict
major destruction on the U.S. within about five years of a decision to acquire
such a capability. During several of those years, the U.S. might not be
aware that such a decision had been made.
Tuesday, February 15, 2000
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