US senators urge N.Korea-Myanmar probe

WASHINGTON—US senators on Friday called for an unclassified report on Myanmar’s cooperation with North Korea after shady accounts of military and nuclear cooperation between the isolated nations.

Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, introduced a bill that would ask President Barack Obama to present Congress with a probe on the two nations’ ties.

“Greater attention should be focused on the details and scope of military equipment and technology transferred from North Korea to Burma,” Lugar said, using Myanmar’s earlier name.

“Events in other parts of the world should not detract from obtaining a reality check regarding the elevated military and strategic collaboration between North Korea and Burma,” he said in a statement.

The resolution asks Obama to “provide leadership” for an international investigation into alleged crimes against humanity in Myanmar, where rights groups say troops regularly kill, rape and enslave ethnic minorities.

The Obama administration has voiced support for a UN-backed probe but has done little to turn it into reality, with Myanmar’s neighbor China and other Asian countries believed to be opposed to such an effort.

US memos released last year by the website WikiLeaks said that Washington has suspected for years that Myanmar ran a secret nuclear program supported by Pyongyang, with one source saying he saw 300 North Koreans at an underground site.

Weapons are one of the only sources of income for North Korea, which has repeatedly threatened to proliferate during marathon denuclearization talks involving the United States.

Lugar’s resolution was co-sponsored by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the top Republican in the chamber, and Senator James Inhofe, a Republican of Oklahoma.