(JDW) Images suggest North Korea using Chinese TEL for new missile

ASIA PACIFIC

Date Posted: 16-Apr-2012

Jane's Defence Weekly

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Images suggest North Korea using Chinese TEL for new missile

Ted Parsons JDW Correspondent
Washington, DC

Additional reporting by
James Hardy Asia-Pacific Editor
London

Key Points Images taken in Pyongyang on 15 April suggest that North Korea's new missile is transported by a transporter-erector-launcher of Chinese design If this is confirmed, the TEL would be in breach of UN sanctions designed to prevent weapons proliferation by North Korea

 Images suggest that China has either sold the design or manufactured the transporter-erector-launcher (TEL) vehicle for the three-stage missile that North Korea unveiled on 15 April at a parade in Pyongyang marking the centenary of founder Kim Il-sung's birth.

The presence of the TEL in Pyongyang questions the efficacy of the international effort to contain and reverse Pyongyang's nuclear weapons threat.

North Korea revealed its new ballistic missile two days after its Unha-3 satellite launch vehicle was destroyed shortly after launching from the Sohae Launch Station in the country's northwest. The new missile's size and design suggests it could have a range of 5,000-6,000 km.

The 16-wheel TEL is apparently based on a design from the 9th Academy of the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC), also known as the WoSang truck factory, which produces the WS series of TELs that are used to deploy CASIC's DF-11, DF-16 and DF-21 short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. Images of the WS2600 from a CASIC brochure indicate that the two TELs have the same windscreen design; the same four windscreen wiper configuration; the same door and handle design; a very similar grille area; almost the same front bumper lighting configuration; and the same design for the cabin steps. CASIC's involvement in North Korea's missile programme would require approval from the highest levels of the Chinese government and the People's Liberation Army. As the TEL design would require intimate knowledge of the new missile, there is also the possibility that Chinese entities have been involved in additional design and manufacturing aspects of it too. The possibility that China is involved in North Korea's development of a new long-range missile might undermine international efforts to counter Pyongyang's nuclear and missile development: it also challenges Beijing's repeated assertions that China opposes North Korea's development of nuclear missiles, and that the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is exercising responsible leadership to arrest the development of North Korea's nuclear weapons programme. COMMENT The possibility that China is supporting North Korea's strategic weapons programme complicates international efforts to negotiate with North Korea and could fatally undermine the six-party talks, which are hosted by China and are built on the premise that there is a unanimous desire to prevent the North from developing a nuclear capability. Finally, China's involvement in providing this erector-launcher to North Korea would put it in breach of UN Security Council Resolution 1874, which prohibits supplying North Korea with 'any arms or related materiel, or providing financial transactions, technical training, services, or assistance related to such arms'. Copyright © IHS Global Limited, 2012