North Korea apparently building facilities at Yongbyon nuclear site, IAEA says

Vienna: North Korea appears to be renovating and building facilities at its Yongbyon​ nuclear site, a central element of its atomic weapons program, the UN nuclear agency’s head said on Monday.

North Korea, which is believed to have carried out nuclear tests in 2006, 2009 and 2013, has not granted IAEA inspectors access to its facilities since 2009, reducing the agency to monitoring its nuclear activities from outside the country.

Experts: Iran Housing Nuke Materials in North Korea, Syria

Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the State Department, dismissed as “bizarre” the reports, which described the transfer of enriched uranium and ballistic missile technology back and forth between the two rogue regimes.

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If Iran is not forced to disclose the full extent and nature of its outside nuclear work to the United States, there is virtually no avenue to guarantee that it is living up to its promises made in the negotiating room, according to multiple experts and sources in Europe apprised of the ongoing talks.

Gordon Chang, a North Korea expert who has written in recent days about Iran’s possible “secret program” there, described the State Department’s dismissal of these reports as naïve.

Exclusive: Testing detente, U.S. firms move to sell jet parts to Iran

(Reuters) – U.S. aerospace companies are seeking permission to sell airliner parts to Iran for the first time in three decades, in a key test of the temporary relief on sanctions given under talks to curtail Iran’s nuclear activities.

At least two leading manufacturers, Boeing and engine maker General Electric (GE), have applied for export licenses in a six-month window agreed by Iran and six world powers in November, industry officials and other sources familiar with the matter said.

If approved, the sales would be the first acknowledged dealings between U.S. aerospace companies and Iran since the 1979 U.S. hostage crisis led to sanctions that were later broadened during the dispute over Iran’s nuclear activities.