Iran Focus: Washington, DC, Nov. 21 North Korea has assisted Iran in its missile production efforts, a leading Iranian dissident announced at a press conference in Washington on Monday. Iran Focus
Washington, DC, Nov. 21 North Korea has assisted Iran in its missile production efforts, a leading Iranian dissident announced at a press conference in Washington on Monday.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, a former U.S. representative of the Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance, said Irans Ministry of Defence had taken over a six-by-20 kilometre area of south-east Tehran on the orders of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei where it had built secret underground tunnels to carry out a covert strategic plan to build missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads with the assistance of Pyongyang.
In August 2002, Jafarzadeh revealed two of Tehrans top-secret nuclear sites: an underground uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, and a heavy water reactor in Arak.
Jafarzadeh, who now runs a strategic consultancy firm in Washington, said that missile and nuclear warhead production was being carried out in the same vicinity where the secret underground tunnels were constructed. Tremendous work and money has been invested in this site. The plan involves dozens of tunnels and facilities built under the mountain, he said.
North Korean experts have cooperated with the regime in the design and building of this complex. Many blueprints of the site have been prepared by North Korean experts, bringing Pyongyangs contribution to Iranian missile program to a new height, he added.
He identified the Hemmat Industries Group Factory, located in the area, as a key branch of Irans missile industry, adding that Hemmat Industries was currently building Shahab-1, Shahab-2, Shahab-3, and Qadr missiles. The production lines of Shahab and Qadr missiles are now near the underground tunnels providing them with a much greater security.
The range of Qadr and Shahab-3 missiles have the capability to carry nuclear warheads, Jafarzadeh said, adding that the latter was being manufactured in large numbers and was already part of Iranian Revolutionary Guards arsenal.
