Tokyo: North Korea has started exporting multiple-launch rockets to military-ruled Myanmar, after the two nations agreed to normalise ties last year, a Japanese television report said today.

The weapons exports are in violation of economic sanctions imposed on North Korea after the communist state conducted a nuclear test in October 2006,Japan's public broadcaster NHK reported, citing unnamed diplomatic sources.

It said "full-scale" exports of the weapons had been handled by an unnamed Singapore trading company. Multiple-launch rockets are 24 centimetres in diameter and about one metre each with a range of about 65 kilometres, the report said. NHK did not give any further details.

North Korea and Myanmar agreed in April to restore relations. Yangon severed ties in 1983 following a failed assassination attempt by North Korean agents on then South Korean President Chun Do-Hwan during his visit to Myanmar.

The bombing killed 17 of Chuns entourage including cabinet ministers, along with four Myanmar officials. Myanmar and North Korea have been branded "outposts of tyranny" by the United States which imposes sanctions on both countries.
Source : PTI