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North Korea Offers Nigeria Ballistic Missile Aid
North Korea has offered to provide ballistic missile assistance to Nigeria, the Nigerian government said yesterday (see GSN, Dec. 16, 2003). The offer was made during a meeting between Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar and Yang Hyong Sop, visiting vice president of North Korea’s Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly, said Abubakar spokesman Onukaba Ojo. The two officials agreed to a “program of cooperation that includes missile technology,” he said. Abubakar’s office issued a statement that said Nigeria’s “government would continue to cooperate with the Korean government in the defense sector, an area in which both Nigeria and North Korea had cooperated over the years.” A Nigerian official said that while North Korean military officials have shown their Nigerian counterparts a “catalog of what they have, nothing has been finalized and Nigeria has not taken any concrete steps toward acquiring it yet.” “This is just a memorandum of understanding. No action has been taken yet,” Ojo said. Ojo also said that Nigeria hopes the United States and other countries would respect the agreement with North Korea. “We are a sovereign nation. We should be able to cooperate with any nation we wish to cooperate with as long as it is in the best interests of Nigeria,” he said, adding Nigeria “is not shopping around for nuclear technology or weapons of mass destruction.” “Whatever we are discussing with them is only to enhance the capability of our military for peacekeeping and to protect Nigeria’s territorial integrity,” Ojo said (Glenn McKenzie, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Jan. 28). The United States said yesterday, however, that it hopes Nigeria rejects the North Korean offer. “We’d welcome a decision to turn down any such offers from North Korea,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. “We want to stop North Korea’s missile activities, and we’ve gone to many countries to try to encourage them not to buy,” he said. If the deal goes through, the United States might impose sanctions against both countries, a State Department official said. “The United States is committed to using all available measures, including interdictions and sanctions, when warranted, against North Korea’s missile activities and those of its missile customers,” the official said (Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, Jan. 29). South Korea today said that the North Korean offer might be intended as a tactic by Pyongyang to gain an advantage before a possible second round of six-nation talks intended to solve the nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula (see GSN, Jan. 22). “I see it as a tactic by North Korea to arouse anxiety from the United States ahead of the second round of six-nation talks,” South Korean Unification Minister Jeong Se-hyun said (Soo-jeong Lee, Associated Press/Yahoo!News, Jan. 29).
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