SEOUL (AFP) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in Pyongyang Thursday that relations between Russia and North Korea have reached a “new and qualitatively strategic” level, Russian news agencies reported.
Published on: 10/19/2023 – 06:47 Last updated: 10/19/2023 – 06:45
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Lavrov arrived in North Korea on Wednesday evening for a two-day visit that comes after a summit last month in the Russian Far East between North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and President Vladimir Putin.
Russian news agencies quoted Lavrov as telling North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui that “after this historic summit… we can say with confidence that relations (between Russia and North Korea) have reached a qualitatively new and strategic level.”
Lavrov’s talks are supposed to lay the foundations for Putin’s next visit to North Korea, as a Kremlin spokesman said earlier.
On Wednesday, Lavrov praised North Korea’s support for the Russian-led military attack in Ukraine. RIA Novosti quoted the Foreign Minister as saying, “We greatly appreciate your principled and clear support for Russia’s actions within the framework of the special military operation in Ukraine.”
When the North Korean leader traveled to Russia last month on an armored train for a summit with Vladimir Putin, he said bilateral relations with Moscow were his country’s “number one priority.”
This summit in September and the apparent improvement in relations between Russia and North Korea raised Western concerns about the possibility of Pyongyang supplying Moscow with weapons for its military operations in Ukraine.
The United States confirmed on Friday that arms deliveries are actually underway, noting that North Korea has delivered more than a thousand containers of military equipment and ammunition to Russia in recent weeks.
In return, Pyongyang seeks to obtain Russian military equipment and “advanced technologies,” as US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby announced to reporters.
This week, Moscow condemned these statements, stressing that Washington had no evidence of that.
© 2023 AFP
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2023-10-19 04:47:04
