TOKYO (AFP) — Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Tuesday that North Korea and Iran could pose a danger to both Asia and the Middle East, amid allegations of their military cooperation.
"Iran is at the forefront of the 'axis of evil' and alongside North Korea constitutes a danger for the stability of Asia and the Near East," Olmert told Japanese Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba, according to the premier's spokesman.
The spokesman, Yanki Galente, declined to comment on a Japanese press report that Olmert would share with Tokyo intelligence showing Pyongyang's military cooperation with Iran and Syria.
But a high-ranking Israeli official, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Olmert had provided Japanese authorities with information on North Korean sales of ballistic missiles to Iran.
Japan has tense relations with North Korea, which fired a missile over Japan's main island in 1998.
"Japan has concerns over North Korea's nuclear proliferation and so we hope to cooperate more with Israel on this issue," Ishiba told Olmert, according to a Japanese defence ministry official.
Israel has called for a tough line on Iran over its nuclear drive. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly lashed out at the Jewish state and questioned the extent of the Holocaust.
US President George W. Bush in 2002 branded Iran, North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq as an "axis of evil," although his administration more recently has chosen a less confrontational approach to Pyongyang.
Impoverished North Korea, one of the few non-Muslim states that has no relations with Israel, is believed to rely on weapons exports as one of its top money-makers.
In September Israel launched an air strike in Syria, which Western media reports said targeted a nuclear facility developed with North Korea.
The New York Times last month said that Syria, which has denied a North Korean link, was rebuilding on the same site of the September attack.
Japan's Nikkei newspaper, quoting an Olmert aide, said the Israeli premier would on Wednesday share with his Japanese counterpart Yasuo Fukuda satellite photos supposedly showing ships travelling from North Korea to Syria.
Olmert is on the first visit by an Israeli premier to Japan in more than a decade aimed largely at boosting tepid trade with the world's second largest economy.
Olmert is also expected to press for Japan to end its oil purchases from Iran.
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