Vladimir Putin has said Russia will build \u201cgood neighborly relations\u201d with North Korea on the fourth day of Kim Jong Un\u2019s lengthy visit to the country, amid warnings from the West that Moscow must not break international sanctions targeting Pyongyang. <\/p>\n
\u201cKorea is our neighbor. One way or another, we must build good neighborly relations with our neighbors,\u201d Putin said at a press conference on Friday, after the Russian president\u2019s meeting with Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko. <\/p>\n
\u201cYes, there are certain special [circumstances] associated with the Korean peninsula, we are discussing this, discussing it openly,\u201d Putin said, claiming Russia \u201cnever violate anything, and in this case, we are not going to violate anything either.\u201d <\/p>\n
His comments came after Kremlin officials talked up channels for cooperation between Moscow and the secretive state, which is the target of numerous international sanctions. The national security advisers of the United States, South Korea, and Japan on Thursday jointly issued a warning regarding potential violations of international sanctions by North Korea and Russia. <\/p>\n
Kim visited an aircraft plant in the eastern city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur on Friday, according to Russian state media. Russia\u2019s Deputy Prime Minister, Denis Manturov, said after the tour that Moscow saw \u201cthe potential for cooperation both in aircraft manufacturing and in other industries\u201d with North Korea, according to a Russian government press release Friday on its Telegram channel. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe see the potential for cooperation both in aircraft manufacturing and in other industries \u2013 this is especially relevant for achieving the tasks our countries face to achieve technological sovereignty,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
The facility is the country\u2019s largest aviation manufacturing plant and builds and develops warplanes for the Ministry of Defense, including the Su-35S and Su-57 fighter jets, state media TASS reported. Kim\u2019s late father, Kim Jong Il, also visited the plant in 2002. <\/p>\n
Images showed Kim and his delegation at the Yuri Gagarin Komsomolsk-on-Amur Aircraft Plant (KnAAZ), which is named after the famed Russian cosmonaut, and being shown the inside of a fighter jet, according to Russian state media RIA Novosti. <\/p>\n
Accompanying Kim on the tour was the city\u2019s mayor, Alexander Zhornik, and the Khabarovsk Region Governor Mikhail Degtyarev. <\/p>\n
The North Korean leader is also expected to travel to the port city of Vladivostok where he will view the military capabilities of Russia\u2019s Pacific Fleet, Russian President Vladimir Putin told state news agency Russia 1. <\/p>\n
The tour of key sites in the Russian Far East region came after Putin previously said Russia is considering and discussing some military cooperation with North Korea, following a summit at which Kim appeared to endorse Moscow\u2019s war on Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Wednesday\u2019s five-hour meeting at the Vostochny Cosmodrome signaled closer relations between the two countries, both of which face international isolation \u2013 Moscow for its invasion of Ukraine and Pyongyang for its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile program. <\/p>\n
The Kremlin said Thursday that Putin had accepted Kim\u2019s invitation to visit North Korea and that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov would also visit the country in October, according to spokesman Dmitry Peskov. <\/p>\n
Asked if the two leaders discussed military and technical cooperation during the talks, Peskov said it was a \u201csensitive sphere of cooperation\u201d and reiterated Moscow\u2019s commitment to further developing ties with Pyongyang. <\/p>\n
Later on Friday, Peskov said that \u201cno agreements were signed\u201d between the two countries during the visit. <\/p>\n
Efforts to showcase that closer relationship were on full display during the summit. Putin presented Kim with a space suit glove that had gone into space and a high-quality domestically manufactured carbine \u2013 a type of rifle \u2013 while Kim also offered Putin a carbine crafted by North Korean artisans, according to Peskov. <\/p>\n
At a state banquet with Putin Wednesday, Kim vowed to establish \u201ca new era of 100-year friendship\u201d between the two countries. <\/p>\n
In the weeks before the summit, US officials warned that Russia and North Korea were \u201cactively advancing\u201d in a potential arms deal that could see Pyongyang provide weapons for Moscow to use in its faltering Ukraine war in exchange for sanctioned ballistic missile technology. <\/p>\n
Putin was asked if he discussed military-technical cooperation with Kim during the leaders\u2019 meeting. In response, Putin acknowledged there were certain restrictions in place, saying Moscow fully complied with them. But he also said there were areas open for discussion and consideration, suggesting potential points of cooperation. <\/p>\n
Kim said before a toast at the state dinner with Putin that he is \u201ccertain that the Russian people and its military will emerge victorious in the fight to punish the evil forces that ambitiously pursue hegemony and expansion.\u201d <\/p>\n
Without naming Ukraine, Kim said the \u201cRussian military and its people will inherit the shining tradition of victory\u201d and demonstrate their reputation on the front line of \u201cmilitary operation,\u201d the euphemistic phrasing Moscow uses to describe its illegal invasion of Ukraine. <\/p>\n
\u201cI will always be standing with Russia,\u201d Kim said, praising Moscow for having \u201cstood up against the hegemonic forces\u201d to defend its sovereignty and security, a veiled reference to the United States and the West. <\/p>\n
In return, Putin signaled a willingness to assist North Korea in developing its space and satellite program. <\/p>\n
On Thursday, a Ukrainian presidential adviser called the talks \u201ca manifestation of incapacity\u201d and said Ukraine was \u201ctaking the actions of Moscow and Pyongyang very seriously and making its own calculations.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cMoscow\u2019s need to beg for help from North Korea is certainly a reason for jokes, a manifestation of Russia\u2019s incapacity, and a verdict on Putin\u2019s 23-year policy,\u201d said Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the Head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office on X, formerly known as Twitter. <\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s Defense Intelligence said Wednesday that military cooperation between Russia and North Korea was not new. Russian requests for projectiles for artillery and MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket Systems) are already known to Ukrainian authorities, Andrii Yusov, representative of the Defense Intelligence, said in an interview with Ukrainian state media. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t neglect this. This is an important factor that will be felt, unfortunately on the battlefield, but this is not news in this situation. This is a scenario, the reaction to which Ukraine is working on,\u201d Yusov reportedly said. <\/p>\n
When asked in a background briefing whether North Korea\u2019s rockets were being supplied to Moscow, an official from South Korea\u2019s presidential office said, \u201cWe have long confirmed that weapons provided by North Korea were used by Russia in the Ukraine battlefield.\u201d <\/p>\n
The Biden administration believes North Korea delivered infantry rockets and missiles for use in Ukraine by Russian mercenary force Wagner last year. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the national security advisers of the United States, South Korea, and Japan said in a Thursday statement, released by South Korea\u2019s presidential office, that there would be would be \u201cclear consequences\u201d if either Russia or Norther Korea were to breach their obligations under the United Nations Security Council resolutions and sanctions, particularly those relating to arms trade and military cooperation. <\/p>\n
\u201cAll three countries expressed grave concerns over the discussions between the two leaders, which included topics related to military cooperation, including the development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), despite repeated warnings from the international community,\u201d the statement said. <\/p>\n\n
Vladimir Putin has said Russia will build \u201cgood neighborly relations\u201d with North Korea on the fourth day of Kim Jong Un\u2019s lengthy visit to the country, amid warnings from the West that Moscow must not break international sanctions targeting Pyongyang. \u201cKorea is our neighbor. One way or another, we must build good neighborly relations with <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":8556,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8555","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}