The Iran-North Korea connection...

A small item from Reuters that does not sound good.

Japan is worried that technology for a long-range cruise missile that can carry nuclear warheads may have been leaked to North Korea from Iran, a Japanese daily said on Sunday.

At issue is technology used in cruise missiles known as Kh-55s that Ukraine exported to Iran in 2001 under former Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma, the Sankei Shimbun daily said, quoting Japanese government and ruling party sources.

"They are linked by a network beneath the surface regarding the development of weapons of mass destruction," Sankei quoted a Defence Ministry source as saying about Iran and North Korea.

The possible leak of technology was conveyed to Japan by a U.S. intelligence agency, said Sankei, a conservative daily.

Developed in the late 1970s in the former Soviet Union, the Kh-55s have a range of 3,000 km, long enough to hit any part of Japan if deployed by North Korea, Sankei said.

The Financial Times said in March that Ukraine had acknowledged exporting 12 such cruise missiles to Iran and six to China in 2001 without any nuclear warheads.