Iran nuke experts visited N Korea this year: Report

The Iranian experts made three visits to North Korea between March and May, the conservative Sankei Shimbun said, quoting what it described as "a Korean peninsula source," who was not named.

The visits "may have been intended to ask North Korea for know-how on how to act when accepting inspectors," Sankei quoted the source as saying. "Cooperation on nuclear development may also have been discussed," the source added.

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Two Iranian experts stayed in North Korea for several days in March for talks with North Korean officials in charge of nuclear development, Sankei said. One expert visited in April and two experts visited in May, the newspaper added.

Sankei said North Korea may receive, or may already have received, funds from Iran, both of which have been branded as part of an "axis of evil" by President Bush along with pre-war Iraq.

Washington has accused Iran of violating the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Tehran has signed, by using undeclared nuclear material to test a uranium enrichment system.

Iran says its nuclear ambitions are limited to producing electricity and it has allowed inspectors from the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to visit several of its nuclear facilities.

On Tuesday it denied having any hidden nuclear facilities that should have been declared to UN inspectors, following a critical UN report of Tehran's nuclear program which Washington called "deeply troubling."