South Korean Government Considering Adding Washing Machine Motors To Watch List

If you're living in North Korea and your washing machine breaks, you may very soon have a much bigger problem on your hands.

The South Korean government is considering including motors from washers on a "watch list" of items proposed this week that would ban exports that could potentially aid the efforts of Kim Jong Un's regime to acquire nuclear missiles and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a report on Thursday from the national newspaper JoongAng Ilbo.

"We are cataloguing a Watch List to include items that can contribute to the development of nuclear and missile weapons," a spokesperson for South Korea's Unification Ministry official told the newspaper.

"Items included on the list are banned from export to North Korea by international society...there are quite a number of items that are used completely differently from their original purpose and converted for use in North Korea's weapons development."

According to the government official, North Korea's increased isolation from the rest of the world due to increased international pressure has forced the county's military to get highly inventive with their materials.

"When North Korea was in its original nuclear development stage, it used barrel washing machine motors for centrifuges," the Unification Ministry employee said.

"Thus, washing machine motors will be included in our Watch List. Because centrifuges are so costly and are strategic materials, they cannot be imported easily, and North Korea seems to have used washing machine motors, which have similar performance properties."

According to Lee Chun Geun, a senior researcher at Seoul's Science and Technology Policy Institute, the practice is most likely still commonplace. He pointed to a disassembled North Korean missile four years ago as proof that the country is most likely still using a wide variety of materials in their quest for weapons supremacy.

"When the projectile from North Korea's launch of the Unha-3 rocket in 2012 was dissembled, it contained components that you could not be imagined being used," he said.

"The parts that were used in the Unha-3, such as temperature sensors, humidity sensors, batteries and cables, could all be included in a watch list."

No word yet on whether North Korea will still be able to import dryer motors.