North Korea: we did not help Hamas and Hezbollah

North Korea has rejected the claims that it supplied missiles to Hamas and material support to Hezbollah as "sheer fiction" and a "sinister" effort to link Pyongyang to Middle East disputes, AFP reports.

The rebuttal from the foreign ministry was carried in a statement late Monday by the North's official KCNA news agency.

It followed a weekend report by Britain's Daily Telegraph, citing Western security sources, that the Hamas had already made an initial cash down payment to secure additional missiles and communications equipment from North Korea.

That report came days after a U.S. federal judge in Washington ruled that North Korea had provided advanced weaponry to the Hezbollah group in Lebanon.