But outside this mighty task, the three states whose names regularly darken international disarmament conferences make up an unlikely, almost unholy alliance with no common strategy, diplomats and experts say.

Iraq and North Korea are barely talking to each other -- officially -- and while Iran has good relations with the Stalinist regime in Pyongyang, its ties with capitalist South Korea are better.

All three virulently condemned Bush's "axis of evil" speech last week in which he accused the Iran, Iraq and North Korea of spreading weapons of mass destruction and endangering world peace.

Bush said "all options are on the table" in making "the United States and our allies more secure."

"Bush, the dwarf," said Iraq's official Babel newspaper run by President Saddam Hussein's eldest son Uday. A North Korean foreign ministry spokesman condemned what he called the "moral leprosy" of the Bush administration.

The Iranian government said Monday that it would be an "irreparable mistake" for the United States to launch an attack.

The "axis of evil" label also raised concerns among US allies, such as South Korea where Bush is to hold talks this month.

Ari Shamkhani (poster) is at the end of the day just another politican touting for votes Nuke-Free Iran Threatens Severe Retaliation If Attacked Dubai - Feb 5 (AFP) - Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani on Tuesday refuted US and Israeli accusations that Iran was seeking to build up a nuclear arsenal, and warned of severe retaliation if it came under attack. "It is true we are constantly accused by the United States and Israel of seeking non-conventional weapons but that does not interest us. We are not looking to procure them," Shamkhani told the Saudi-owned pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper. Shamkhani said possession of such weapons would make Iran a threat in the eyes of others and "that could be exploited to harm relations with countries in the region." He also warned Israel in an interview with Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite channel that it faced severe retaliation if it were to attack the Bushehr nuclear power station in southern Iran. "If Israel undertakes military action against Iran, it will face a response that would not have crossed the mind of any Israeli politician," the minister said, stressing that response would not be nuclear. Shamkhani told Asharq Al-Awsat that Iran was content to develop its ballistic capabilities to defend itself, notably with the Shihab 3 missile, which has a range of 1,300 kilometres (810 miles). "We want to increase the precision of this missile and its explosive force in the limits allowed by international norms and laws," he said, adding it was sufficient to uphold Iran's "defensive policy". Asked about the presence of US troops in Afghanistan, Shamkhani said Iran was "strongly opposed to the presence of foreign military forces in the region, whether in Gulf waters or Afghanistan." "We think that conflicts and the war in this region are due to foreign presence," he added. US President George W. Bush branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" -- along with Iraq and North Korea -- in his State of the Union speech last week. In recent days Bush and other US officials have accused Iran of developing weapons of mass destruction, sponsoring terrorism, interfering in the new government being set up in neighbouring Afghanistan and assisting members of the al-Qaeda terror network and the ousted Taliban regime to escape from that country. Iran said Monday that any attack on it by Washington would be an "irreparable mistake."

"Axis of evil is a convenient general term that hides the complicated ties between the United States and these three countries," said a Seoul-based Asian ambassador, whose country has relations with each of the so-called "axis" states.

"To say that there is a serious alliance between them is laughable," the ambassador added. "But individually they do of course pose a threat to the United States."

Iran, Iraq and North Korea share hostility toward the United States. All three are on a US list of states that support terrorism. What has brought them together is the Soviet-origin Scud missile that each has used as a basis for developing a weapon that can threaten US interests.

North Korea provided Iran with Scud missiles during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. North Korean experts also helped Iran's ballistic missile programme, according to US and other western intelligence services.

The two countries remain friendly but the presence of South Korean conglomerates in the Iranian automobile and oil industries act as a major counter-weight, experts said.

And Iran denies there has been military cooperation with North Korea, which now has a missile that the United States fears could hit parts of Alaska.

Thirteen years after the end of the their war, contacts between Iran and Iraq -- both of which refuse to recognise Israel and daily denounce "US hegemony" -- are still uneasy though they made progress during a visit to Tehran in January by Iraq's Foreign Minister Naji Sabri.

Normalisation is held up by the fate of thousands of refugees and prisoners from the 1980-1988 war.

The United States has expressed concern about Iranian weapons and its support for terrorism, particularly since the September 11 attacks on US cities blamed on the al-Qaeda network.

But in Tehran, Iranian political expert Iradj Rachti said: "Iran does not feel part of an axis with Iraq, with whom there are still very serious points of contention, or North Korea.

"Iranian leaders and ordinary people do not understand this link which they consider purely circumstantial," added Rachti.

Some intelligence reports have also said North Korea supplied missiles to Iraq. But President Saddam broke links to the Stalinist North in 1980, accusing Pyongyang of backing Iran in their war.

Little has openly changed since then, despite unconfirmed reports that North Korea is helping to finance a missile plant in Sudan that also has links to Iraq.

"Hatred of America is so far not enough to bring these countries together across vastly different religious, social and economic outlooks," said the Asian ambassador. "They could of course be pushed into it if US pressure increases."

All rights reserved. � 2002 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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