RELATED PRESS
Oleg Kozhemyako, Russia’s governor of the Maritime Territory Administration, receives a bouquet of flowers from a North Korean woman after he arrived at the Pyongyang International airport in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday, Dec. 11.
SEOUL, South Korea >> North Korea’s most sensible economic officials met with the governor of a Russian region along the Pacific coast to discuss strengthening economic cooperation between the countries, North Korean state media said on Wednesday.
The meeting in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital, was held amid growing concerns in South Korea that the North might try to expand its labor exports to Russia, in violation of U. N. Security Council resolutions aimed at generating profits for its struggling economy and helping. leader of the Kim Jong fund. The UN’s nuclear weapons program.
The official Korean news firm said North Korean officials led by the country’s Foreign Economic Minister Yun Jong Ho met with the delegation led by Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of Russia’s Far Eastern Primorye region, and discussed economic cooperation between the two countries. at “higher levels”. The report does not specify the types of cooperation discussed.
Kozhemyako told Russian media that he hoped to talk about expanding cooperation with the North Koreans in the fields of agriculture, tourism and trade.
Kozhemyako continues a wave of international relations between North Korea and Russia this year, highlighted through a summit between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin in September, that underscores their aligned interests in the face of separate and escalating confrontations with the United States.
The U. S. and South Korea have accused North Korea of supplying Russia with artillery shells and other weapons in recent months to aid it in its war against Ukraine, while Russia and North Korea have denied such transfers.
There are also fears that North Korea will send personnel to Russia to offload much-needed foreign currency, which would run counter to U. N. Security Council sanctions imposed on the North over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, the country’s main spy agency, in a message sent to reporters on Tuesday said it had detected signs of North Korean preparations to send workers to Russia. The agency didn’t elaborate on what those signs were.
At a news conference in Seoul on Tuesday, South Korean Unification Minister Kim Yung Ho said his government is watching whether Russia accepts more North Korean workers.
“Sending North Korean personnel to Russia would be a flagrant violation of U. N. Security Council resolutions,” he said. “As a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia has a duty to honestly implement the Council’s sanctions. “
Last year, North Korea hinted at its interest in sending structural personnel to help rebuild Russian-backed separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, an idea that has been blatantly supported by senior Russian officials and diplomats, who envision a cheap, hard-working solution that may simply be thrown into difficult conditions.
Have comments? Learn more here.
Click here for our full information on the coronavirus outbreak. Submit your coronavirus news.
Back to top