Last year, Korea came out as the world’s fifth largest importer of weapons. North Korea ranked 70th in comparison.
The VOA reported that Sweden’s “Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)” announced on the 31st of March that according to statistics on the world’s conventional weapons, out of 100 countries, North Korea ranked 70th last year for weapons imports.
The VOA reported, in accordance with findings released March 31st by the International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), that out of 100 applicable countries, North Korea ranked 70th last year for conventional weapons imports.
According to the SIPRI report, Greece was the largest importer of weapons last year, followed by Korea, China, India, and United Arab Emirates. The U.S ranked 18th and Japan, the 20th largest importer. In the case of 2006, on the scale of conventional weapons, North Korea ranked 90th in the world.
On one hand, the largest exporter of weaponry is the United States, followed by Russia, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. China ranks 10th and South Korea has risen to the 17th position. However, North Korea and Japan have not ranked in statistics.
In an interview with VOA, the researcher of SIPRI covering Asia, Siemon Wezeman stated that North Korea mainly imports antiaircraft missiles, portable firearms that can be propped on the shoulder, and revealed, the North manufactures most of its own weapons and has been given a special license for the use of weapons designs from the former Soviet Union and China.
In addition, researcher Wezeman maintained the scale of North Korea’s weapons exports is so small that for several years it has not shown up on statistical analyses.”
In particular, Wezeman pointed out that North Korea mainly sells what we cannot monitor, especially missile technology,” and because these technologies are sold to only a small number of countries like Pakistan, and because these countries are not transparent, there is no way to know for certain which technologies are being sold.
Wezeman goes on to say that we cannot know if the missile programs in Iran, Syria, and Pakistan incorporate North Korea’s system in its entirety or in part to some degree.”
In regards to this, Commander of U.S. Forces Korea General Burwell Bell announced at a hearing for the U.S. Senate Military Committee on the 11th that at present, North Korea has had a near zero balance on proliferation activity since having sold its main missile at the end of 2005.
