North Korea's isolated totalitarian regime has offered to sell Nigeria advanced missile technology, a Nigerian official said Wednesday, announcing talks that are likely to anger the United States.
"They came to us wanting a memorandum of understanding signed with us towards developing missile technology, and training and manufacture of ammunition," said a spokesman for Nigeria's Vice President Atiku Abubakar.
"They were just trying to get us interested. There hasn't been any interest shown on our side," Onu Kaba Ojo said.
Ojo confirmed that Nigeria was seeking ballistic missile technology, and said that this had come up at a meeting on Tuesday between Atiku and his North Korean counterpart Yang Hyong-Sop, although no deal had been signed.
A statement issued by Atiku's office after the meeting said: "He assured that government would continue to co-operate with the Korean government in the defence sector, an area in which both Nigeria and North Korea have co-operated over the years."
But, Ojo said, Nigeria bought weapons from "many countries" and no deal had yet been struck with Pyongyang.
Any move by Nigeria to acquire North Korean ballistic missiles would be sure to annoy Washington, which is locked in a bitter stand-off with Pyongyang over its nuclear ambitions and international arms sales.
Kim Jong-Il's totalitarian regime - which US President George W. Bush regards as a member of a so-called "axis of evil" - earns much of its hard currency by selling and swapping missile and weapons secrets.
Profits from the proliferation are said by US intelligence to feed back into North Korea's search for a nuclear weapon.
Ojo insisted that Abuja's talks with Pyongyang should not give Washington cause to worry, and promised that Nigeria was not at all interested in acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
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