With Iran-DPRK missile cooperation in the news, it might be a good idea to recount a pretty fascinating story. The IRGC's first Scud B shopping trip to North Korea. Thread.

During the Iran-Iraq War, Iran acquired its first Scuds from Gaddafi's Libya and soon used them to strike Baghadad in retaliation for Iraqi air attacks. However, there were issues with the Libyans (will try to make a thread on this later) and Iran began looking for a new supplier

At this point, the Iranians were already importing arms from the DPRK and during one of their factory visits they noted that the DPRK was producing Scuds. So around August/September 1986, IRGC Minister Rafiqdust, and missile force commander Moghaddam went to Pyongyang.

Traveling via China, they arrived in the DPRK, lodged in a guest hose near the airport and were given a tour of the city. The food was absolutely horrible so the Iranians made a decision to bring their own sandwiches on future trips.

After several delays they finally met Kim Il Sung at a villa near Paektusan but only after receiving etiquette training on how to behave when interacting with him. Even Moghaddam found the setting weird, noting that their table was so large you could football on it.

To break the ice, Rafiqdust presented Kim with a peacock carpet claiming that it signified thousands of years of life for Kim Il Sung, inventing the Persian version of 'Manse!' in the process. When it came to Scuds, Kim and the North Koreans were reluctant at first.

Apparently they still hadn't produced enough missiles for themselves yet. However, Kim finally relented noting the achievements of Iran in the fight against US imperialism, telling them he had only hit the American's shin but they had struck their heart.

Agreements on payment were troublesome. The Iranians wanted a barter deal exchanging oil for missiles. The North Koreans noted that they consumed so little oil, the didn't need it and wanted hard currency instead.

Finally some agreement was reached and Iran purchased a first batch of eight missiles and four TELs. However, the Iranians had placed one more condition. They wanted to inspect the missile before delivery.

So they were driven to a factory, which Iranian sources describe as being located on the Pyongyang-Nampo road. This was almost certainly the DPRK's well-known Chamjin missile factory. 38.955432° 125.574208°

On arrival they were greeted by a Scud TEL which highly impressed the self-reliance loving Iranians. Namely the TEL had been domestically built by the DPRK using a 35-ton Japanese KATO crane as a basis.

Funnily enough, this statement can be easily verified. In a 2017 concert, the DPRK released historic footage of its missile program, including an early domestically-built TEL which on closer inspection very much resembles a 35 ton KATO crane. https://www.flickr.com/photos/150159554@N03/albums/72157683457111924

As they got closer, their enthusiasm quickly turned into disappointment. According to the Iranians, it was very obvious the missile had been made by the DPRK. The quality of every single part of both the missile and the TEL was inferior...

to the Soviet-made TELs and Scuds the Iranians had gotten from the Libyans. Even the erection process was less smooth.

The quality was so bad that they joked they could simply paint one of the green DPRK Scuds white and give it to the Libyans to check whether it would actually launch or just explode. But in the end, there was no alternative so they decided to go ahead with the purchase.

End.