The Ministry of Defense (MOD) of Azerbaijan had once planned to purchase North Korean-made surface-to-air missiles from the Hesong Trading Corporation.

The respective business deal was to be signed with British arms dealer Michael Ranger, according to Haqqin.az news agency of Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijan Defense Minister at the time was Safar Abiyev, who held this office from February 1995 to October 2013.

The deal, however, did not go through because Azerbaijan had asked for pilot batches of these missiles, but the aforesaid North Korean company had not accepted this term, and instead invited the Azerbaijani delegation to the North Korean capital city of Pyongyang. But since North Korea is under sanctions, Azerbaijan had not accepted this invitation.

The abovementioned is noted in the files of the judicial case into Ranger, who was arrested in London in 2011.

Even though these court documents do not contain any evidence that the Hesong Trading Corporation had agreed to supply missiles to Azerbaijan, the relevant correspondence between Michael Ranger, the said North Korean company, and the Azerbaijan MOD are attached to the files of this court case.