By Kang Hyun-kyung
Staff reporter
North Korea reportedly sold missiles to international terrorist group al-Qaida and engaged in arms trade with Pakistan that allegedly supported insurgents in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, South Korea has participated in the United States-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan to deny al-Qaida sanctuaries overseas by dispatching troops and a non-military workforce to help post-war reconstruction there since 2002, despite multiple warnings from the Taliban.
South and North Korea, acting on seemingly opposite sides of the global war on terror, have sparked speculation over whether their security standoff at home has extended abroad.
Paik Seung-joo, a senior research fellow at the state-run Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, observed the two Koreas’ motives are different and therefore it is hard to say definitively whether they are engaged in an overseas confrontation involving the war on terror.
“Cash-strapped North Korea sold missiles to earn cash, whereas South Korea sent military and non-military personnel to Afghanistan because it was critical to maintain the ROK-U.S. alliance,” the security expert told The Korea Times.
Paik made the remarks after the website WikiLeaks released more than 91,000 classified Afghan war documents the White House called “alarming.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was quoted as saying that the disclosures were just the beginning, adding that some 15,000 more files on the Afghan war were still being vetted by the website.
Among the 91,000 secret documents are the arms deal between North Korea and al-Qaida, which is the first time that the nexus of an arms deal between the North and the terrorist group was reported.
According to the report, Osama bin Laden’s financial advisor Dr. Amin (whose last name was lost), along with Hezb-e-Islami party leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, flew to North Korea from Iran on Nov. 19, 2005.
“While in North Korea, the two confirmed a deal with the North Korean government for remote controlled rockets for use against American and coalition aircraft,” it said.
The documents also alleged that Pakistan played a double game when it came to the U.S. war in Afghanistan as its security officials secretly provided Afghan insurgents with aid.
Earlier, U.S. intelligence officials claimed that Pakistan was a key supplier of uranium enrichment technology to North Korea, which both North Korea and Pakistan denied.
The U.S. Congressional Research Service report, entitled “Weapons of Mass Destruction: Trade between North Korea and Pakistan,” stated that the two sides have been engaged in conventional arms trade for over 30 years.
“Pakistan could offer North Korea a route to nuclear weapons using highly enriched uranium (HEU) that could circumvent the plutonium-focused 1994 Agreed Framework and be difficult to detect,” the report said.
North Korea began exporting ballistic missiles and technology in the 1980s, and Pakistan began producing HEU at the Khan Research Laboratory during the same period.
Lately, North Korea’s arms trade with Pakistan is getting fresh attention, as the latter was disclosed to have helped Afghan insurgents.
In addition, the North’s alleged secret arms deal with al-Qaida came at a time when South Korea joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan from 2002.
In October, 2001, the U.S. government waged a war on terrorism to deny al-Qaida sanctuaries overseas after Osama bin Laden masterminded the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York.
The Afghan war is the centerpiece of the U.S. war on terrorism.
South Korea has sent troops and a medical and engineering workforce to help the war-torn nation rise from the ashes, build a sustainable democracy, and set up governance.
The two events ― North Korea’s arms deal with al-Qaida and Pakistan on the one side and South Korea having joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan on the other side ― have caused experts to speculate about whether the two Koreas are using the war on terror as a venue for their own fratricidal tensions.
Security expert Paik disagreed, saying North Korea would probably have considered the arms sales with al-Qaida a source of cash, not thinking they were engaging in the war on terrorism.