A newly released collection of U.S. diplomatic cables has revealed that U.S. intelligence believes North Korea, in addition to documented proliferation activities, has also provided Iran with 19 complete copies of the Musudan missile that it showed off publicly for the first time at a military parade in October.
The cable, sent on February 24th this year and released as one of 250,000 similar documents by WikiLeaks to the New York Times, Guardian (U.K.), Le Monde (France), El Pais (Spain) and Der Spiegel (Germany) over the weekend, says that Iran ordered the 19 missiles in order to develop its own new generation of missile engines.
The Musudan is based on the R-27, a submarine-launched missile developed by the Soviet Union. Eight such Musudan missiles were shown to the world during the October 10th parade commemorating the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Chosun Workers’ Party, according to military analysts.
With its medium range (approximately 2,500-3,000km, according to estimates) and ability to convey a miniature nuclear warhead, intelligence agencies are worried that it could potentially bring much of Western Europe into Iran’s nuclear range at some point in the future.
While a flourishing trade in missile parts between Iran and North Korea has long been suspected, it was not known that complete missiles, which are considerably harder to disguise, had travelled between the two countries.
