As the White House clashes with media over multiple reports purporting to indicate damage dealt by U.S.-dropped "bunker buster" bombs on heavily fortified Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend was not as extensive as advertised, analysts and former officials say North Korea is closely eyeing what the unprecedented operation may hold for its own nuclear fortresses.

The fallout comes at a symbolic time, as both Koreas on Wednesday observed the 75th anniversary of their devastating three-year war. And while President Donald Trump appears to have won a ceasefire putting an end to Iran and Israel's "12-Day War," peace continues to elude the Korean Peninsula, where North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un has long counted Tehran as a partner.

In fact, some experts and foreign intelligence reports have long indicated a direct connection between Iran's sprawling underground enrichment facilities at Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz—three sites targeted by 15-ton Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOPs) carried by B-2 stealth bombers on Saturday—and North Korea's own subterranean nuclear network.

Among them is Bruce Bechtol, former intelligence officer at the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and current professor at Angelo State University in Texas.

"The B-2 have to certainly give the North Koreans great pause," Bechtol told Newsweek. "And the reason I say that is because it looks like the B-2—at least for now—with those bunker buster weapons, can take out just about anything."

He argued that North Korean experts helped engineer Iran's nuclear infrastructure, "so why wouldn't you think their facilities are built the same way?"

"They're built great, and they thought they could withstand bunker buster bombs and all that other stuff. Well, not so fast, my friend," Bechtol said. "I think definitely the action just taken by the U.S. Air Force with those B-2 bombers has at the very least made the North Koreans have to sit back and take pause."

"And, at the very most," he added, "maybe they're going to start replanning for where they're going to have those facilities and how they're going to protect them."

While more concrete evidence has emerged of Iran and North Korea's collaboration on conventional military capabilities, the suspected ties between their nuclear infrastructure have never been independently verified.

Yet multiple sources, including a 2009 Congressional Research Service paper and 2006 Janes Defense Weekly report, indicated that a North Korean delegation led by expert Myong Lyu Do traveled to Iran in 2005 to help oversee construction of protected nuclear sites in partnership with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The project would have begun a year prior to North Korea, then led by Kim's father, Kim Jong Il, conducting its first nuclear weapons test. Iran, for its part, is not assessed to possess any nuclear weapons and continues to deny seeking them.

But there are other parallels between Tehran and Pyongyang's nuclear journey that may prompt worry for what lies ahead for North Korea, which has also tried its hand at winning Trump over with diplomacy.

Just as he scrapped the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) reached by his predecessor, President Barack Obama, alongside Iran and other world powers, Trump pressed forward with a separate track of talks with Kim in 2018. That June, he became the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korean ruler and held two additional meetings before talks ultimately unraveled the following year.

The breakdown in negotiations was not accompanied by a return to open threats between Trump and Kim, as was the case more recently with the U.S. and Iran, a difference that could at least partially be attributed to the fact that North Korea was negotiating with an increasingly advanced nuclear arsenal.

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