Russia’s foreign minister laid out normal security talks with North Korea and China to deal with what he described as developing threats from the U. S. -led regional military, when he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his most sensible diplomat in Pyongyang on Thursday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in North Korea’s capital on Wednesday for a two-day vacation that is expected to focus on how to improve the two countries’ defense relations following the September summit between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Last week, the U. S. said North Korea had transferred ammunition to Russia to bolster its combat roles in Ukraine, in violation of U. N. Security Council resolutions banning any arms industry involving North Korea.
On Thursday, Lavrov met with Kim for talks that lasted about an hour, Russia’s official news firm Tass reported, explaining. Lavrov met with his North Korean counterpart Choe Son Hui on Thursday and praised the deepening of bilateral cooperation.
Lavrov and Choe discussed “resuming full contacts” and intensifying economic cooperation, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. He added that Lavrov had invited Choe to make a stopover in Moscow “at his convenience. “Tourists start their vacation in North Korea.
The Lavrov-Kim assembly “means that the recent fleet of boxes likely carrying ammunition from North Korea to Russia is not the last transaction between Kim and Putin that the world wishes to worry about,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of foreign studies at Ewha. . University of Seoul.
“After agreeing to Pyongyang’s request to resupply Ukraine illegally, Moscow is poised to commit further violations of U. N. Security Council resolutions by offering North Korea a generation of military that can only threaten stability in East Asia,” Easley said.
Tass quoted Lavrov as telling reporters that he supported holding normal negotiations on security issues on the Korean Peninsula with North Korea and China.
“The U. S. , Japan and South Korea are intensifying their military activities here and Washington is striving to move strategic infrastructure here, nuclear aspects, it’s a wonderful fear for us and our North Korean friends,” Lavrov said, according to Tass.
The diplomatic whirlwind between Russia and North Korea underscores the extent to which their interests align in the face of their separate and escalating confrontations with the United States: North Korea over its complex nuclear program and Russia over its war with Ukraine.
The U. S. has expanded its normal military exercises with South Korea and temporarily deployed more resilient military assets around the Korean Peninsula in reaction to North Korea’s missile launches since last year. The U. S. and South Korea have also resumed some trilateral military exercises with Japan.
During Lavrov’s stopover, the focus was on whether the two countries will give indications on how they will consolidate their security cooperation or announce the timing of Putin’s promise to Pyongyang to return Kim’s stopover to the Russian Far East.
During his trip to Russia, Kim met with Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s highest-vitality liberation center, and inspected other key Russian weapons production sites. This has led to intense hypotheses that Kim is looking for a complicated Russian generation to modernize his nuclear arsenal in exchange for the source of traditional weapons to fill Russia’s dwindling arsenal of weapons. Neither Russia nor North Korea revealed what Putin and Kim agreed to at the summit.
At a dinner held in his honor on Wednesday, Lavrov said Russia deeply appreciates North Korea’s “unwavering and principled support” for its war against Ukraine, as well as Pyongyang’s resolve to recognize the independence of Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, according to Russia’s Foreign Ministry. Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
North Korean state media said Lavrov also praised North Korea for “remaining unfazed by any U. S. -Western tensions” and said Russia fully supports Kim’s efforts for its security and economic interests. Choe said Pyongyang and Moscow were building an “unbreakable friendship of camaraderie” under the leadership of Kim and Putin.
The White House announced Friday that North Korea has delivered more than 1,000 boxes of military equipment and ammunition to Russia. The White House released photographs that it said showed the boxes were loaded onto a Russian-flagged ship before being transported for exercises in southwestern Russia.
Since last year, the U. S. has accused North Korea of supplying Russia with ammunition, artillery shells and rockets, most of which are likely copies of Soviet-era munitions. North Korea has adamantly denied sending weapons to Russia, but South Korean officials have said North Korean weapons provided to Russia have already been used in Ukraine.