"North Korea is the seller and Iran is the buyer," Bruce Bechtol, who is a professor of political science in the Department of Security Studies at Angelo State University in Texas, told Fox News.
A significant portion of Iran's ballistic missile arsenal was either directly purchased from North Korea, or includes weapons developed by North Korea, experts told Fox News Digital on Monday.
"The missile launched at Diego Garcia was a Musudan. The Iranians bought 19 of these from the North Koreans and took delivery in 2005. They have had this capability since 2005 - and this is no ‘secret weapon,'" Bruce Bechtol, who co-authored with Anthony Celso the book Rogue Allies: The Strategic Partnership Between Iran and North Korea, told Fox News Digital.
Iran fired two ballistic missiles at a joint US-UK military base on the island of Diego Garcia, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday night, citing multiple US officials.
One of the missiles failed in flight, and a US warship fired an interception at the other. At this time, it has not been determined if an interception was made, but neither missile hit the base, officials told WSJ.
Diego Garcia is located about 4,000 kilometers from Iran, double the 2,000-kilometer range that Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Iran’s ballistic missiles had last month.
Iranian missiles rely on North Korean systems, component parts
Bechtol also told Fox that the short-range ballistic missiles that Iran has launched toward US targets in neighboring Gulf states rely on the QIAM system, which was developed with North Korean assistance. He added that Iran's "new" Shahab-3 missile is "almost an exact copy of the [North Korean] No Dong."
"The North Koreans proliferated around 150 No Dong systems to Iran in the late 1990s. The Iranians were apparently very happy with the missiles the North Koreans provided them, and, following the earlier precedent of the Scud C factory, contracted with Pyongyang to build a No Dong facility in Iran," Bechtol explained.
The North Koreans also helped Iran develop the Emad and Ghadr missile systems, which have been used to target Israel as well as Gulf states, at the No Dong facility in Iran.
Bechtol summarized the relationship between the two nations, saying that "North Korea is the seller and Iran is the buyer." North Korea develops all the component parts of the weapons systems, and Iran pays using "cash and oil."
Iran 'in advanced stages of development' of long-range missiles
According to a report published by Israel’s Alma Research and Education Center at the start of the war, Iran’s missile inventory primarily consists of short-range ballistic missiles, which reach up to 1,000 kilometers, and medium-range ballistic missiles, which can reach as far as 3,000 kilometers.
However, the Center added that “according to various reports, long-range ballistic missiles are currently in advanced stages of development.”