Burma to test atomic bomb in a few years?
Melbourne, Aug. 1: As world concerns remain focused on the clandestine nuclear programme of North Korea and Iran, reports are filtering in of Burma’s isolated military junta may be just a few years from testing its first atomic bomb.
The key far-eastern nation is building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction facilities with North Korea’s help, Sydney Morning Herald has reported citing two key junta defectors. The Burmese military has sited the reactor in mountain caves inter-linked by deep tunnels at Naung Laing in Northern part of the country, apparently to camouflage it from detection by satellites.
The secret complex, the paper said, runs parallel to a civilian reactor being built at another site by Russia that both the Moscow and Rangoon authorities say will be put under international safeguards. The revelations by the daily come as United States naval warships recently shadowed a North Korean commercial vessel bound for Burma, suspecting it to be carrying contraband nuclear and missile components. However, the ship was not intercepted. China and other Asian nations had helped persuade Burma to turn back the North Korean freighter, the Nam Kam 1. A month back the Japanese police arrested a North Korean and two of its own nationals allegedly trying to export illegally to Burma magnetic measuring device that could be used to develop missiles.
The daily identified the two defectors as an officer with the Burmese Army’s secret nuclear battalion and the other a former executive and leading regime business partner who handled nuc-lear contracts with Russia and North Korea. —PTI
The key far-eastern nation is building a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction facilities with North Korea’s help, Sydney Morning Herald has reported citing two key junta defectors. The Burmese military has sited the reactor in mountain caves inter-linked by deep tunnels at Naung Laing in Northern part of the country, apparently to camouflage it from detection by satellites.
The secret complex, the paper said, runs parallel to a civilian reactor being built at another site by Russia that both the Moscow and Rangoon authorities say will be put under international safeguards. The revelations by the daily come as United States naval warships recently shadowed a North Korean commercial vessel bound for Burma, suspecting it to be carrying contraband nuclear and missile components. However, the ship was not intercepted. China and other Asian nations had helped persuade Burma to turn back the North Korean freighter, the Nam Kam 1. A month back the Japanese police arrested a North Korean and two of its own nationals allegedly trying to export illegally to Burma magnetic measuring device that could be used to develop missiles.
The daily identified the two defectors as an officer with the Burmese Army’s secret nuclear battalion and the other a former executive and leading regime business partner who handled nuc-lear contracts with Russia and North Korea. —PTI
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