More Iranian oil is expected to reach North Korea after the removal of international sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation under a landmark deal on Tehran's nuclear program, a congressional report said.
  

The Congressional Research Service made the assessment in a recent report on Iran's foreign policy, saying that Tehran and Pyongyang have generally been allies, in part because both have been considered by the United States and its allies as "outcasts" or "pariah states" subjected to wide-ranging international sanctions.
  

"North Korea is one of the few countries with which Iran has formal military-to-military relations, and the two countries have cooperated on a wide range of military and WMD-related ventures, particularly the development of ballistic missile technology," the report said.
  

In addition, Iran reportedly funded and assisted in the retransfer of missile and possibly nuclear technology from North Korea to Syria in the past, the report said.
  

Though the North has never announced a public commitment to comply with international sanctions against Iran, the communist nation's economy is too small to significantly help Iran, the report said.
  

According to some observers, however, a portion of China's purchases of oil from Iran and other suppliers is re-exported to North Korea, the report said.
  

"As Iran's oil imports increase after international sanctions are removed in conjunction with the JCPOA, it is likely that additional quantities of Iranian oil might reach North Korea, either via China or through direct purchasing by North Korea," it said.
  

JCPOA is the acronym for the Iranian nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which Tehran and six world powers announced in July after more than a dozen years of international efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
  

The agreement calls for significantly limiting Iran's nuclear program in exchange for the United States, the European Union and the United Nations lifting economic sanctions that have stifled the Middle Eastern nation's economy.
  

On Iran's relations with South Korea and Japan, the CRS report said that Tehran's primary interest in the two Asian economic powerhouses has been to maintain commercial relations and evade U.S. sanctions, as neither Japan nor South Korea has been heavily involved in security and strategic issues in the Middle East.
  

But as key allies of Washington, Seoul and Tokyo have imposed trade, banking and energy sanctions on Iran that are similar to those imposed by the EU, as they were unwilling to risk their positions in the U.S. market by violating any U.S. secondary sanctions on Iran, the report said.
  

Iran has tried to use the oil import dependency of the two countries as leverage, but both countries have cut imports of Iranian oil sharply since 2011, it said.
  

South Korea and Japan together hold a significant portion of the approximately $115 billion of Iran's foreign exchange reserves that are held abroad because the U.S. sanctions require oil buyers to pay Iran by depositing money in local accounts in their respective countries, which Iran can then use to purchase goods in that country, the report said. (Yonhap)