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Residents of Thabeikkyin township, 60 miles north of Mandalay, said recently that searches were underway in the area. Other activity was reported from southern Tenasserim Division.

Recently, a Russian mining company accidentally found large deposits of uranium in upper Burma, according to Chinese sources. The Russian companies Zarubezneft, Itera, Kalmykia and the state-owned enterprise Tyazhpromexport have been involved in oil and gas exploration and the establishment of a plant to produce cast iron in Shan State. Tyazhpromexport’s investment alone is worth about US $150 million.

It’s not so much the Russian nuclear involvement with Burma that creates nervousness and speculation, however, as the generals’ new chumminess with North Korea.

In April, a North Korean freighter, the Kang Nam I, docked at Thilawa port, 30km south of Rangoon. Burmese officials said the ship, the first to visit Burma since the restoration of diplomatic relations, sought shelter from a storm.

The Thilawa port is run by AsiaWorld Company Limited, owned by former drug kingpin Lo Hsing-han. Two local reporters working for a Japanese news agency were briefly detained and turned back when they went to the port to investigate.

It wasn’t the first time a North Korean ship reported running into trouble in Burmese waters—by a strange coincidence, the North Korean cargo vessel M V Bong Hoafan sought shelter from a storm and anchored at a Burmese port last November. The Burmese government reported that an o­n-board inspection had “found no suspicious material or military equipment.” But journalists and embassies in Rangoon remained skeptical.

Early last July, a dissident source told The Irrawaddy that a North Korean ship carrying a senior Korean nuclear technology expert, Maj Hon Kil Dong, arrived in Rangoon with a biological and nuclear package. Western analysts and intelligence sources quickly dismissed this report but conceded it was possible that Burma would seek conventional arms and technology rather than high-tech long-range missiles from Pyongyang.

Indeed, to skeptics, the go-ahead for the nuclear reactor project and the arrival of that North Korean ship are two developments that can hardly be coincidental. The Russian involvement in Burma’s nuclear project and the arrival of North Korean ships also sent alarms bells ringing in Beijing, although Burma’s close and powerful political ally remained tight-lipped o­n the issue. But Beijing can hardly afford to have two nuclear neighbors: North Korea and Burma.

It is admittedly premature to conclude that Burma intends to undertake the complicated and perilous process of reprocessing uranium to get weapons-grade plutonium, as things stand at the moment, although strong suspicions will continue to grow. But as Burma has set a goal of becoming a nuclear power nation by 2025 does it make sense to develop a nuclear weapon? Maybe not.

But o­ne chilling theory is that if the North Korean freighters that arrived last November and this year carried not o­nly conventional weapons but plutonium and processing materials to Burma, it could indeed be suspected that Burma plans to skip the messy process of obtaining plutonium and move straight to the production of weapons.

It is easy to speculate that Burma may be seeking nuclear technology from Pyongyang, although no solid evidence has emerged so far. It is legitimate, however, to raise the issue and to inquire into the regime’s intentions, in the interests of keeping nuclear technology out of the hands of irresponsible governments.

The Burmese government has declared that it has no desire to develop nuclear weapons. Its nuclear program is solely for “peaceful purposes,” runs the government line. All fine and good—if it weren’t for the questionable source of those assurances.