2023-09-15 13:05:45
Russian President Vladimir Putin has defended his country’s cooperation with the Stalinist dictatorship of North Korea. “We do not pose a threat to anyone,” Putin said on Friday in Sochi, where he met with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko. The allies USA and South Korea strongly warned against military cooperation between North Korea and Russia.
Any arms trade between Moscow and Pyongyang would violate existing UN resolutions aimed at North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, participants of a joint strategy and advisory group emphasized on Friday in Seoul. Both sides agreed that North Korea and Russia would have to pay “a price” in the case, said South Korean Vice Foreign Minister Chang Ho-jin, according to the Yonhap news agency.
Russia is North Korea’s neighbor and the situation on the divided Korean peninsula is special. But Moscow is not violating any international sanctions against the country, which is ostracized because of its nuclear plans, Putin said. Two days earlier, he had agreed to closer cooperation with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Fears had been raised in the West that Russia would buy ammunition from North Korea for its war of aggression against Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied this. According to the Interfax agency, no military-technical agreements were concluded during Kim’s visit. Putin said it was also nonsense that Russia allegedly wanted to use North Korean volunteers in Ukraine.
Putin reported to Lukashenko about the meeting with Kim. The authoritarian Belarusian ruler suggested thinking about triangular projects between Russia, North Korea and his country. For Lukashenko, the visit to Sochi on the Black Sea was the seventh meeting with Putin this year. He owes his stay in power after the allegedly fraudulent presidential election and mass popular protests in 2020 to a large extent to Moscow’s support.
Belarus has delivered 60,000 tons of gasoline and diesel to Russia as requested to stabilize the fuel market, Lukashenko said, according to Russian agencies. In view of the Western sanctions against both countries, Lukashenko said: “Yes, we live a little poorer, a little bit.” But in the coming year, economic exchange between Russia and Belarus could return to the level of the time before the sanctions.
Meanwhile, North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un viewed the latest Russian Sukhoi Su-57 fighter jet in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in the Far East during his visit to Russia. According to the Russian government, Kim visited aircraft factories in the city around 300 kilometers from the Pacific coast with Russia’s Industry Minister Denis Manturov on Friday. Manturov said Russia sees potential for cooperation with North Korea in aircraft manufacturing and other industries.
The Russian government showed the North Korean leader, among other things, the production of Su-35 and Su-57 fighter jets. According to an aviation expert, Kim was only the second foreign state guest after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to be allowed to look into the cockpit of a Su-57 (NATO marking: Felon). According to media reports, the stealth bomber, which has been developed since 2002, has been in series production in Russia since 2019. India withdrew from the planned joint production in 2018.
After a demonstration flight of the Su-35, Kim’s armored platoon left the city, Russian state media reported. A video showed the loading of his armored Maybach limousine onto the special train with which the North Korean leader is visiting Russia. His next stop will be the important port city of Vladivostok before returning to North Korea.
Kim met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia’s most modern space facility in the Amur region. Both met for bilateral consultations following a tour of the cosmodrome. Russia and North Korea intend to strengthen their relations with further talks on North Korean soil after the recent summit in Vostochny. Putin therefore accepted Kim’s invitation to visit North Korea.
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