A UN report confirmed that North Korea was trying to sell machine guns, mortar ammunition and grenades to the Middle East. It is known that the weapons they were trying to sell were about 20 types, including ammunition, and the number was close to 40 million. Reporter Ham Ji-ha reports exclusively. (Video coverage: Kim Seon-myung / Video editing: Kim Jeong-gyu)
The UN Security Council 1970 Committee on Libya’s sanctions issue is a recently published annual report.
The report said that in 2015, Abdul Rahman Bager, a UAE national, tried to procure weapons through North Korea’s Korea Mining Development and Trading Company (KOMID).
A total of 24 weapons are listed, including firearms, machine guns, mortars, rocket ammunition, grenades, and bulletproof vests. Specifically, 20 million machine gun ammunition, 10 million rifle ammunition, 5,000 semi-automatic pistol ammunition, and 3 10,000 pieces, 40,000 rounds of 107mm rocket ammunition, 3,000 pieces of grenades, and 5,000 pieces of bulletproof vests.
Combining these ammunition and other weapons into units is over 38 million. The report, however, said that no arms trade had taken place and that the UAE military authorities had purchased these weapons through Serbia.
Then, North Korean national Kim Yun-song communicated with Bager to close the transaction, and Jang Yong-seon, the third secretary of the North Korean embassy in Iran, and a person named ‘Ri Hyung’ were involved. It has been confirmed that an attempt was made to trade arms in the Middle East.
The deal was canceled, but considering the circumstances of the deal for tens of millions of ammunition, it was confirmed that North Korea could manufacture these ammunition directly or at least procured it from other countries.
North Korea has been criticized several times in the past for selling weapons to the Middle East and Africa.
Although the UN Security Council has banned North Korea’s arms trade through its resolution on sanctions against North Korea, there are continuous cases of North Korea attempting to sell arms or actually succeeding.
The United Nations said that the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Africa, were using a North Korean-made ‘Type 73 machine gun’, and pointed out that the short-range ballistic missile launched by the Houthis is highly likely to be an improved version of North Korea’s ‘Hwasong-6’ missile. I did.
Also, in 2016, a high-frequency radio for military use, a microphone for decryption, and a GPS/high-frequency antenna were discovered on a ship heading for Eritrea from North Korea. This happened.
This is Jiha Ham from VOA News.
