Myanmar opposition sources have claimed since 2005 that the military regime had embraced a clandestine nuclear programme, but details remained vague until the defection in 2007 of two key Myanmar citizens, one an army officer and the other a businessman, who claimed their country's military regime was building a covert reactor and plutonium extraction complex with North Korean help.

Myanmar has been negotiating the purchase of a civilian reactor from Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency has been accordingly notified, but the defectors say they are talking about a parallel programme that is being developed in secret and has nothing to do with the negotiations with Moscow.

Both defectors were interviewed by Professor Desmond Ball of the Australian National University who told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, 'All we can say is these two guys never met up with each other, never knew of each other's existence, and yet they both tell the same story basically.

'If it was just the Russian reactor, under full International Atomic Energy Agency supervision, which the Russians keep insisting is their policy and the Burmese may have agreed to with that reactor, then the likelihood of them being able to do something with it in terms of producing fissionable material and designing a bomb would be zero.'

Ball went on to assert, 'In the event that the testimony of the defectors are proved, the alleged secret reactor could be capable of being operational and producing one bomb a year, ever year, after 2014.'

While Professor Ball was debriefing the defectors, code named Moe Jo and Tin Min respectively, a U.S.-based analyst, Dr Jeffrey Lewis of the New America Foundation, obtained satellite imagery of a suspicious looking site near Mandalay and blogged his concerns on his arms control website, armscontrolwonk.com.

'Over the past couple of days, I've been emailing with a couple of colleagues about this very odd building in Myanmar (former name Burma). Staring at that big box was the main reason I tweeted that this Burma-NORK nuclear link has me worried,' Lewis wrote.

'It's big and tall. It is also nestled into the mountains and riveted. There seems to be a power transmission line running in (or out of it). It is several clicks from an obvious water source.

'Still, someone has been very interested in it — in addition to this 2005 image, Digital Globe has happy snaps from 2008 and 2009 centred right on it. What do you all think?'
Lewis passed on his concerns and suspicions to a London-based NGO, Vertic, that was set up in 1986 to promote effective verification and implementation measures for arms control. Vertic uses publicly available satellite imagery to track strategic military sites all over the world.

Vertic's Acting Director, Andreas Persbo, told Asian Affairs, 'We haven't seen anything that looks like a reprocessing plant. We've seen a building that may be a reactor, in particular there is a ditch surrounding the building that looks like how some graphite moderated reactors have their coolant stored, basically in underground pools surrounding the reactor. Apparently, according to my engineer, that's standard practice in some post Soviet states.

'We know the facility is 'hot' at the moment. What we don't know is whether this is internal heat or the sun reflecting on the roof because in the latest images we have, it is pretty warm in Myanmar and a lot of vegetation around is also showing some elevated heat patterns. It's hot enough to stand up from background pretty well, but it could just simply be that it's sun shining off the roof.'

Another U.S. researcher who has also seen the Lewis supplied imagery is much more cautious about the conclusions that can be drawn. Sean O'Connor who runs the much praised imagery intelligence (imint) blog, says in his detailed assessment of the site measuring 82 by 84 feet, with a v shaped roof made of corrugated metal, 'There are numerous aspects of this facility which suggest that… it is not the site of the covert nuclear plant or reprocessing centre.

'There is no indication of any nearby source of water, or any significant piping from such a source, to provide the necessary water to cool the reactor. It was reported by one of the defectors that North Koreans were present at the covert site to engage in significant tunnelling projects, as the reactor and/or plutonium processing plant were allegedly to be placed below ground. No sign of any sort of tunnelling is present, or at least was not present in 2005.'

He concludes by arguing that further investigation and analysis is required 'but it can be stated with a degree of certainty …that no nuclear activity will be undertaken beneath the 82 by 84 roof.'

O'Connor's reservations not-withstanding, interest remains high among those who still believe there is an evolving strategic relationship between North Korea and Myanmar.

Such interest was endorsed by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her visit to Southeast Asia last July. Clinton said during a stopover in Bangkok that she was troubled by the possibility of North Korea supplying nuclear hardware to Myanmar.

'We know that there are also growing concerns about military cooperation between North Korea and Burma, which we take seriously,' she added. 'It would be destabilising for the region. It would pose a direct threat to Burma's neighbours.'

Among those neighbours is India. Earlier last August Indian Coast Guards engaged in a six hour chase of a North Korean vessel, the MV Mu San, after she dropped anchor off Hut Bay in the Andaman Islands without prior permission.

The ship was later stopped in the Bay of Bengal and boarded by a team of suspicious Indian nuclear scientists who searched her for any radioactive material. In the end the investigators concluded she was only carrying a large consignment of sugar. An Indian police spokesman was quoted at the time as saying, 'There will be more checking today and we will open the hatch to check the entire consignment for any radioactive material.’

Former Indian ambassador to Washington Naresh Chandra was also quoted as saying, 'With increasing reports of North Korea helping Myanmar build a nuclear reactor, any vessel floating in Indian waters without a possible reason will be checked and India is rightly concerned.'

Other Asian states like Israel are just as concerned by what the North Koreans sell and to whom. When North Korea provided the wherewithal for Syria to construct a simple nuclear reactor — 50 miles from the Iraqi border — it was the Israelis who detected and destroyed the facility in 2007.

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