Meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said he was ready to honour a series of agreements reached a month ago at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin in Russia.
On a rare trip to Russia last month, Kim discussed the nations’ military co-operation and invited Vladimir Putin on a return visit to Pyongyang.
The topic of the meeting between Kim and Lavrov was ways to enhance cooperation to actively respond to regional and global challenges on the basis of “strong relations of political and strategic trust,” and Lavrov conveyed Putin’s greetings to Kim, KCNA reported.
The North Korean leader pledged to “develop a stable, forward-looking and far-reaching plan for DPRK-Russia relations in the new era, conscientiously fulfilling the agreements reached … and push forward the cause of building a powerful state,” KCNA reported. He called North Korea by the initials of its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Sergey Lavrov and North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui held separate talks on the outcome of the summit and explored opportunities to develop cooperation in advanced science and technology, economy and culture. The diplomats also signed a plan for exchanges in 2024-25 and they discussed how to take bilateral relations “to a higher stage.” The KCNA said in another dispatch:
“Both sides had an in-depth exchange of views on intensifying joint action on several regional and international issues including the situation on the Korean peninsula and in the Northeast Asian region and reached a consensus of views on them.”
Lavrov, at a reception on Wednesday, thanked Pyongyang for Russia’s “unwavering and principled support” and vowed “full support and solidarity” with the North, the Moscow Foreign Ministry said.
US and South Korean leaders express concern over the development of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, and the US has launched military exercises with Japan involving an aircraft carrier and other strategic assets in response to growing military threats from Pyongyang.
In a separate commentary, KCNA criticised the US deployment of strategic assets, including the B-52 bomber and the F-22 Raptor stealth fighter, and joint exercises. If signs of an attack on North Korea are detected, these assets would be destroyed in the “first instance,” the commentary says, adding that the country has already adopted a “nuclear force policy that enables the necessary procedures for action.” The commentary said:
“This is an intentional nuclear war and provocative move by the US. Now that the US and gangsters of the ‘Republic of Korea’ have committed a provocation of nuclear war against the DPRK, the DPRK will take the corresponding option.”
