North Korea emerges as one of the world’s biggest illicit exporters of small arms, alongside Saudi Arabia and Iran
Where nations are secretive, evidence is garnered from reports of weapons seizures, including huge hauls from North Korea and Iran
North Korea has been singled out alongside Saudi Arabia and Iran as one of the world’s most secretive major exporters of small arms, including Kalashnikovs, rockets and machine guns, in a report by experts in Geneva.
Despite increased transparency among the 55 per cent of nations who trade in small arms, the US$6 billion market remains a murky industry in which weapons find their way into the hands of terrorists or are used by states to carry out human rights abuses, according to the Small Arms Survey Trade Update 2017.
Where nations are secretive, evidence is garnered from reports of weapons seizures, including huge hauls from North Korea and Iran.
Such seizures ... coupled with other documented small arms trade activities, are sufficient to justify North Korea’s status as a major small arms exporter
In August last year a North Korean vessel was intercepted in Egypt. On board, hidden beneath 2,300 tonnes of iron ore, were 30,000 PG-7 rocket-propelled grenades and their sub components. Suspected North Korean exports of small arms worth US$18 million and destined for Iran were also intercepted on a plane in Thailand in 2009.
“Such seizures ... coupled with other documented small arms trade activities, are sufficient to justify North Korea’s status as a major small arms exporter,” the report said. “Although Iran, North Korea, and the UAE rarely, if ever, recorded small arms exports worth US$10 million or more ... survey research indicates that they are major small arms exporters. It is more difficult to determine the status of Saudi Arabia, which appears to be a significant re-exporter of small arms.”
Tens of thousands of rifles, machine guns, grenade launchers and more than 350 million rounds of ammunition were exported by eight central and southeast European states to Saudi Arabia between 2012 and 2015, the report said. Such shipments were sent to military bases in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the UAE and then re-exported to non-Saudi forces in Yemen and Syria.
“Such information indicates that Saudi Arabia also re-exports significant quantities of small arms to armed forces and non-state actors in the Middle East,” the report says.
Irene Pavesi, researcher on the Small Arms Survey, said: “The concealed nature of the small arms trade increases the chances that the transferred weapons will end up in the wrong hands, and help fuel conflict, insecurity and instability around the world.”
