Reuters:
WASHINGTON, Aug 15 (Reuters) – North Korea likely has the ability to produce its own missile engines and intelligence suggests it does not need to rely on imports, U.S. intelligence officials said on Tuesday.
The assessment disputes a new study by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies that said that the engines for a nuclear missile North Korea is developing to hit the United States likely were made in factories in Ukraine or Russia and probably obtained via black market networks.
The New York Times cited the study on Monday. The newspaper’s report said that classified assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies mirrored the IISS finding.
“We have intelligence to suggest that North Korea is not reliant on imports of engines,” one U.S. intelligence official told Reuters. “Instead, we judge they have the ability to produce the engines themselves.”
The U.S. officials did not disclose any details of what underpinned the assessment on the high-performance liquid-fueled engines, called RD-250’s…
