By DPA
Taipei : Taiwan has blocked the illegal export of high-tech material to Iran and North Korea on four occasions this year, a newspaper said Monday.
The seizures have won praise from the US because they were of restricted materials that could be used in terrorist attacks, the China Times said.
The exports blocked by the Bureau of Investigation consisted of weapons components and included one company’s planned export of a “digitally controlled drilling machine” to Iran, the daily said.
Another firm planned to export machinery for making precision cannon shells to North Korea. Two other firms wanted to export fire-control chips for missiles and military computer software, also to North Korea.
Internationally, 15 seizures of banned weapons or weapon parts prepared for export have been reported, and Taiwan’s Bureau of Investigation has uncovered seven of those cases since 2001, the paper said.