North Korea and Iran cooperate in missile development: US

Washington, Jan 30 (UNI) North Korea and Iran are cooperating in developing long-range missiles, says the Washington Times, quoting the Deputy Director of the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency.

The daily says Army Brig Gen Patrick O'Reilly said during a speech yesterday that North Korea test-fired a long-range Taepodong missile in July, and Iran was working on a space launcher that would help develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that could hit the US.

''Not only North Korea, but Iran has shown some significant developments in their (own) missile systems,'' Gen O'Reilly said in a speech to the George C Marshall Institute.

''They are working in concert with the North Koreans,'' he said.

''They have made a claim that they are working towards developing a space launch capability, which also would give them an ICBM capability.'' The Pentagon believes that Iran has ''a new intermediate-range ballistic missile or space launch vehicle (SLV) in development,'' a Missile Defence Agency briefing slide stated.

The Iranians are ''likely to develop an ICBM/SLV and could have an ICBM capable of reaching the US before 2015,'' the daily says quoting the briefing chart.

One of the new missiles would be solid-fueled, making it capable of being launched rapidly, and have a range of 1,240 miles, enough to hit targets throughout Europe from Iran.

The daily says the speech marked for the first time the Pentagon publicly disclosed the missile cooperation between Pyongyang and Tehran.

The North Koreans test fired a Taepodong-2 on July 4 but the missile failed 40 seconds after the launch, Gen O'Reilly said. The two-stage version has a range of 6,200 miles and the three-stage version can travel 9,300 miles.

''But the indications are clear that they are continuing to strive to expand their ballistic missile capability,'' he said.

The US missile defence system was made operational before the North Korean tests and the forces involved ''performed very well,'' Gen O'Reilly said.

Another briefing chart used during the speech stated that if the Taepodong-2 had threatened the United States, ''we are confident the ballistic missile defence system would have operated as designed.'' The daily says another briefing chart revealed for the first time that North Korea is developing a new intermediate-range missile with a range of about 2,000 miles that was described as ''a qualitative improvement in performance'' from earlier missile systems. North Korea's July tests -seven missiles were fired -- included two 806-mile range Nodong missiles, he said.

UNI