WASHINGTON, March 31: The United States has imposed commercial sanctions on the Khan Research Laboratories because it arranged a transfer of North Korean missiles to Pakistan, a US official alleged on Monday.

Under the sanctions, the United States will not enter into contracts or issue licenses to KRL and the company will not be authorized to export to the United States.

A senior State Department official said KRL had imported missiles from the North Korean’s state-owned Changgwang Sinyong Corp, which has been under the same sanctions since August.

The State Department is simultaneously imposing new two-year sanctions on the North Korean company and the North Korean government, but the only effect of that is to extend existing sanctions until March 2005 instead of August next year.

The Washington Times said on Monday that Pakistan had imported complete No Dong missiles from North Korea, using US-made C-130 transport planes to carry them.

It quoted a senior US official as saying: “We are not talking about missile technology or components but full-fledged No Dong missiles that can deliver nuclear weapons, and they used aircraft we gave them to bring the missiles home.”

The sanctions apply to the North Korean government, but not to the Pakistan government because North Korea is a “non-market economy”, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told a daily briefing. Boucher did not say when the transfer took place.—Reuters