Israel offers aid if N. Korea stops missile exports to Middle East

JERUSALEM -- Israel has agreed to participate in a U.S.-led program to wean North Korea off its intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Israeli officials said the government of Prime Minister Ehud Barak has agreed in principle to join the aid program. The Israeli agreement came in advance of a scheduled visit by a senior North Korean official to Washington next month.

The Israeli Haaretz daily said on Wednesday that Israel is willing to provide agricultural and food to Pyongyang. Israel was one of several Asian and European countries that have expressed willingness to grant the aid.

In exchange, the newspaper said, Israel wants the Clinton administration to intensify efforts to end North Korean missile and nonconventional weapons exports to Middle East nations.

But the United States has stressed the North Korean threat to Korean peninsula and Japan. South Korea and Japan have pledged billions of dollars in aid to Pyongyang to ensure a suspension of North Korea's missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Israeli and U.S. intelligence sources agree that North Korea has been a major supplier of missile technology to Egypt, Iran and Syria.

The U.S. invitation to Israel came after the Clinton administration in 1993 ended an effort by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to establish a dialogue with North Korea. At the time, Foreign Ministry director-general Eitan Bentsur visited Pyongyang and offered assistance in exchange for an end to North Korean missile exports to the Middle East.

In Washington, CIA director George Tenet told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that North Korea has increased its missile export market. "Missiles, and related technology and know-how, are North Korean products for which there is a real market. North Korea's sales of such products over the years have dramatically heightened the missile capabilities of countries such as Iran and Pakistan," he said.

Tenet said North Korea's strategy is to garner as much aid as possible from overseas. The CIA director said he doubted that North Korea is willing to pay a price for such aid.