U.S. widens curbs on N. Korean arms trade

MOSCOW The Bush administration is expanding what it calls "defensive measures" against North Korea, urging nations from China to the former Soviet states to deny overflight rights to aircraft that the United States says are carrying weapons technology, according to two senior U.S. officials.

At the same time, the U.S. officials said, the administration is accelerating an effort to place radiation detectors at land crossings and at airports throughout Central Asia. They are aimed both at North Korea and the risk that nuclear weapons material could be removed from facilities in the former Soviet states.

The new campaign was sped up last summer after a previously undisclosed incident in June, when American satellites tracked an Iranian cargo plane landing in North Korea.

The two countries have a history of missile trade - Iran's Shahab missile is a derivative of a North Korean design - and intelligence officials suspected that the plane was picking up missile parts.

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