Kazakhstan admits selling fighter jets to N. Korea

NICOSIA -- Kazakhstan sold 40 MiG fighter planes to North Korea.

Kazakhstan's Prosecutor-General Yuri Khitrin confirmed at a press conference on Thursday that 40 MiG fighter planes had been illegally sold to North Korea but only 38 had been delivered. Kazakh government officials have previously denied selling the aircraft to North Korea.

Khitrin said Alexander Petrenko was detained two weeks ago for brokering the sale. Khitrin said that authorities had confiscated $1.8 million from Petrenko, believed to be partial payment from North Korea for the planes.

Khtitrin, it said that 30 planes had been sold to North Korea, but Khitrin said Prosecutor-General Yuri Khitrin

Petrenko's lawyer, Alexander Ginzburg said that the deal, worth a total of $8 million, was legal because it was based on earlier framework agreements on military cooperation with North Korea. Ginzburg said the disassembled planes were sent to North Korea on railway across China.

Kazakstan's President Nursultan Nazarbayev fired his defense minister and the national security chief when the sale was reported in August.

Ginzburg said that the sale of fighters to North Korea was linked to the sale of six MiG fighter jets that belonged to Kazakstan.

In March, officials in Azerbaijan discovered the disassembled MiG-21s aboard a Russian cargo plane that arrived from Kazakstan. Azeri customs officials said the cargo was bound for Yugoslavia in violation of a U.N. arms embargo.

Ginzburg said the fighters were originally bound for Bosnia, but the contract was canceled at the last minute.

Kazakstan inherited a large number of combat jets and other military equipment after the 1991 Soviet collapse and has been trading them in the international arms markets.

At an arms fair in Almaty in April 1998, Kazakhstan exhibited former Soviet military hardware, including MiG-21 fighters. The price for each MiG ranged from $150,000-$180,000.