Who gave North Korea its technology for rockets and nuclear weapons?

Brian K. Price

North Korea received early training for the Soviet Union of its scientists. However, after that, much of north Korea’s advances have been indigenous. Their missile technology, in particular, has considerable influence on the missile capabilities of several other nations and may have allowed them to bargain for nuclear information from Pakistan.

Timeline of the North Korean nuclear program:

1956
: The Soviet Union begins training North Korean scientists and engineers, giving them "basic knowledge" to initiate a nuclear program.


1959
: North Korea and the USSR sign a nuclear cooperation agreement.

Although bolstered by early assistance from Moscow, and to some extent Beijing, North Korea's nuclear program developed largely without significant foreign assistance.

Reportedly, Kim Il Sung asked Beijing to share its nuclear weapons technology following China's first nuclear test in October 1964, but Chinese leader Mao Zedong refused.



The international community also became concerned that North Korea might have an illicit highly enriched uranium (HEU) program. In the summer of 2002, U.S. intelligence reportedly discovered evidence of transfers of HEU technology and/or materials from Pakistan to North Korea in exchange for ballistic missiles technology. (Later, in early 2004, it was revealed that Pakistani nuclear scientist Dr. A. Q. Khan had sold gas-centrifuge technology to North Korea, Libya and Iran.) (North Korea | Countries | NTI)


Prime minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan allegedly, through Pakistan's former top scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, supplied key data, stored on CDs, on uranium enrichment and information to North Korea in exchange for missile technologyaround 1990–1996, according to U.S. intelligence officials.

President Pervez Musharraf and Prime minister Shaukat Aziz acknowledged in 2005 that Khan had provided centrifuges and their designs to North Korea. In May 2008, Khan, who had previously confessed to supplying the data on his own initiative, retracted his confession, claiming that the Pakistan Government forced him to be a "scapegoat". He also claimed that North Korea's nuclear program was well advanced before his visits to North Korea. (North Korea and weapons of mass destruction)

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