Ukrainian President Pyotr Poroshenko has instructed the Foreign Ministry to bring the issue of possible sources of missile technology supply to North Korea to a session of the UN Security Council.
The president made this statement on Tuesday after a report from the secretary of the country’s Council for National Security and Defense, Alexander Turchinov, following a probe into media reports about Ukraine’s possible supplies of missile technologies to North Korea.
“With due account for the conclusions of the commission, I want to instruct the Foreign Ministry of Ukraine to prepare a group of experts and initiate discussion on the issue at a closed-door session of the UN Security Council,” he said.
“Separately, the conclusions of a working group and an interdepartmental commission must be published, our international partners must be informed, and a similar probe by respective countries initiated,” he said.
“First of all, the Russian Federation must demonstrate the same openness,” Poroshenko said.
Ukraine has not supplied North Korea with any military goods, in particular RD-250 rocket engines, Turchinov said in a report to President Poroshenko earlier on Tuesday.
“Within the period of Ukraine’s independence, the State Export Control Service has not given any permissive documents for the supply to the DPRK of any goods of military and dual use, in particular RD-250 rocket engines, their modifications or components to them,” he said after the probe.
The New York Times reported on Monday, August 14, referring to a new study by Michael Elleman, a missile expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, that “North Korea’s success in testing an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears able to reach the United States was made possible by black-market purchases of powerful rocket engines probably from a Ukrainian factory.”
“The studies may solve the mystery of how North Korea began succeeding so suddenly after a string of fiery missile failures, some of which may have been caused by American sabotage of its supply chains and cyberattacks on its launches. After those failures, the North changed designs and suppliers in the past two years,” the newspaper reported the expert as saying.
According to the newspaper, the most likely supplier of the engines was Yuzhmash in Ukraine’s Dnepr (former Dnepropetrovsk). Yuzhmash’s management said the Ukrainian rocket maker had no relation to North Korea’s missile programs.