Sydney: North Korea is helping Myanmar build a secret nuclear reactor and plutonium extraction plant to build an atomic bomb within five years, a report said on Saturday, citing the evidence of defectors.
The nuclear complex is hidden inside a mountain at Naung Laing, in Myanmar`s north, and runs parallel to a civil reactor being built at another site by Russia, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
The revelations come just weeks after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced concerns that Pyongyang was transferring weapons and nuclear technology to fellow pariah state Myanmar.
Defectors codenamed Moe Jo and Tin Min reportedly told Australian investigator Desmond Ball the military junta has nuclear ambitions that far exceed its official line.
"They say it`s to produce medical isotopes for health purposes in hospitals," Ball said, quoting Tin Min about the prospect of a Myanmar nuclear programme.
"How many hospitals in Burma have nuclear science?" Tin Min allegedly said, using Myanmar`s former name. "Burma can barely get electricity up and running. It`s a nonsense."
Giving an account of the men`s testimony in the Herald, Ball said they "claim to know the regime`s plans" and that a nuclear-armed Myanmar was a "genuine possibility".
"In the event that the testimony of the defectors is proved, the alleged secret reactor could be capable of being operational and producing one bomb a year, every year, after 2014," Ball wrote in the newspaper.
Moe Jo, a former army officer, allegedly told Ball he was trained for a 1,000-man "nuclear battalion" and that Myanmar had provided yellowcake uranium to North Korea and Iran.
"He said that the army planned a plutonium reprocessing system and that Russian experts were on site to show how it was done," wrote Ball, who is a strategic studies professor from the Australian National University.
Moe Jo said part of the army`s nuclear battalion was stationed in a local village to work on a weapon, and a secret operations centre was hidden in the Setkhaya Mountains, according to Ball.
"(It was) a set up including engineers, artillery and communications to act as a command and control centre for the nuclear weapons program," wrote Ball.
Tin Min was said to have been a book keeper for Tay Za, a close associate of the junta`s head General Than Shwe, and told Ball in 2004 he had paid a construction company to build a tunnel in the Naung Laing mountain "wide enough for two trucks to pass each other".
According to the report, Tin Min said Za negotiated nuclear contracts with Russia and North Korea and arranged the collection and transport, at night and by river, of containers of equipment from North Korean boats in Yangon`s port.
Tin Min reportedly said Za told him the junta knew it couldn`t compete with neighbouring Thailand on conventional weapons, but wanted to "play power like North Korea".
"They hope to combine nuclear and air defence missiles," Za said, according to Tin Min.
Bureau Report
