{"id":8041,"date":"2017-08-25T00:47:50","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T05:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=8041"},"modified":"2017-08-25T00:47:50","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T05:47:50","slug":"did-iran-fund-kim-jong-uns-secret-chemical-weapons-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/2017\/08\/25\/did-iran-fund-kim-jong-uns-secret-chemical-weapons-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Iran Fund Kim Jong Un\u2019s Secret Chemical Weapons Deal?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Trump\u2019s Tomahawk attack in April doesn\u2019t seem to have deterred Assad\u2019s effort to rebuild a chemical arsenal. Kim Jong Un is helping. And Tehran may be paying.<\/h4>\n
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Daily Beast: 08.24.2017<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A new United Nations report detailing chemical arms-related shipments from North Korea to Syria<\/a> raises one big unanswered question: Who finances such illegal weapons deals?<\/p>\n

After all, the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad<\/a> has very few financial resources of its own, and North Korea\u2019s Kim Jong Un is known to use illicit sales of military wares to help bypass international sanctions targeting his country\u2019s legitimate exports, and to finance his grip on power.<\/p>\n

In the past, one of Assad\u2019s strongest supporters, Iran, has been suspected of financing arms deals between Syria and North Korea. Separately, the Islamic Republic reportedly has cooperated with North Korea <\/a>in developing nuclear- and missile-related armaments<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s military involvement supporting the Assad regime in Syria, as well the growing military presence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps<\/a> and Iranian proxy militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and all the way to Afghanistan, has worried rival Sunni regimes in the region, as well as Israel and, increasingly, the United States.<\/p>\n

So did the Iranians finance the chemical shipment described in the UN report?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s plausible that Assad\u2019s largest financial and military backer would have paid for the shipment,\u201d said Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and one of the most prominent critics of the Iran regime in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Yet, as the FDD\u2019s North Korea watcher Anthony Ruggiero explains, proving that connection is complex. Indeed, Ruggiero says, with Assad\u2019s financial problems \u201cit\u2019s not clear what the Syrians have to offer as commodity\u201d to Pyongyang. That might point to Iran\u2014but North Korea\u2019s financial transactions are \u201cconducted through a web of front companies, so it\u2019s not easy to track them down.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump\u2019s Tomahawk attack in April doesn\u2019t seem to have deterred Assad\u2019s effort to rebuild a chemical arsenal. Kim Jong Un is helping. And Tehran may […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8041"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8045,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8041\/revisions\/8045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}