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SEOUL — North Korea on Thursday denied an American intelligence report that it was promoting thousands and thousands of artillery shells and rockets to Russia, accusing the USA of spreading a “reckless” rumor.
“We’ve got by no means exported weapons or ammunition to Russia earlier than and we won’t plan to export them,” a senior official on the North’s Ministry of Nationwide Protection mentioned in a press release carried by its official Korean Central Information Company. “We warn the U.S. to cease making reckless remarks.”
The information company recognized the ministry official as a vice director of the Normal Bureau of Gear, however didn’t launch the official’s identify.
Earlier this month, United States officers launched newly declassified intelligence disclosing what it mentioned have been Russian efforts to purchase North Korean weapons. The officers mentioned that the gross sales have been an indication that sanctions had severely restricted Russia’s provide chains and compelled Moscow to show to pariah states for navy provides to assist its conflict in Ukraine.
North Korea is without doubt one of the few nations which have formally backed the Russian invasion, blaming the battle on Washington. It has additionally acknowledged the breakaway areas of Donetsk and Luhansk in jap Ukraine as unbiased.
Any deal to purchase weapons from North Korea would violate a number of United Nations Safety Council resolutions meant to choke off the North’s capability to boost funds for its nuclear weapons program. Whereas the North Korean official denied such gross sales to Russia, he mentioned his nation was a sovereign state and due to this fact had the proper to develop, export and import weapons.
“We’ve got by no means acknowledged the U.N.S.C. illegal ‘sanctions decision’ in opposition to the D.P.R.Ok., which was cooked up by the U.S. and its vassal states,” the official mentioned. D.P.R.Ok. is the abbreviation of the North’s official identify, the Democratic Individuals’s Republic of Korea.
For the reason that uncommon diplomacy between the North Korean chief, Kim Jong-un, and President Donald J. Trump collapsed in 2019, North Korea has vowed to broaden its arsenal of nuclear weapons and missiles “on the quickest potential velocity.” It additionally adopted a extra aggressive nuclear doctrine this month, setting into legislation the circumstances below which it mentioned it might launch pre-emptive nuclear assaults.
However its nuclear weapons growth has additionally put the nation in financial jeopardy. The United Nations has banned all of North Korea’s important exports — together with coal, iron ore, fish and textiles — since 2017, making the nation more and more strapped for money.
Its exports have diminished even additional in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, forcing the nation to diversify the illicit methods it raises money, together with cryptocurrency thefts. Promoting arms to nations like Iran has lengthy been an unlawful supply of money for the regime, in accordance with United Nations investigators.
In current months, each United States and South Korean officers have launched intelligence asserting that North Korea was able to restart nuclear weapons assessments after a five-year hiatus. No such assessments have occurred, however some analysts in South Korea have urged that the North could have held off to keep away from scary China, a U.S. rival whose financial help Pyongyang badly wants.
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